Quote:
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Originally Posted by Olin
Apple blossoms occur in groups of five. The first and largest is the king
blossom. We do not remove the king but remove all of the others instead.
The reason is to concentrate the sugars in a single and the largest blossom
so it will produce the largest fruit. If the king is removed and the others
allowed to fruit there will be more, but smaller, apples and it will also be
necesssary to do more thinning.
Olin
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Olin, thank you for this: it's beginning to sound - dare I say it - that the tutor at college had it the wrong way round, unless they were trying to teach us to produce more fruit?
Also, the emphasis was on removing fruit, rather than removing blossom: and yes, the instruction was to remove the king fruit first, then to go round again a week or two later and thin any mis-shappen or manky fruits, then again as necessary - the aim being to end up with just one or two fruits per spur.
Your way sounds much more sensible.
That's it, next year I'm rebelling, and will keep all the king fruits instead - it'll be interesting to see if there is any difference in crop, but it will certainly be less work for me!
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