How to thin out your fruit trees to get big yearly crops | Gardening Hacks | Gardening Australia

Thinning fruit is ideally done anytime between when the tree flowers and when it develops marble-sized fruit. Today Sophie is thinning apples, pears and plums, using her hands to twist and pinch them off.

Apples can produce up to nine or ten fruits per fruiting spur cluster. The idea is to keep two or three of the largest fruits, removing the smallest fruits first. The ‘Beurre Bosc’ pear produces huge fruits which are heavy and weigh the branches down. They will generally grow five to seven fruits per flowering spur, so Sophie reduces them down to two.

The ‘Mariposa’ plum is a Japanese variety. While many people don’t thin fruit, last year Sophie found lots of broken branches under the weight of an amazing amount of fruit. Sophie thins these by removing all but two fruits every ten centimetres, which leaves about four or five remaining.

It’s important to note that you need to dispose of ground fruit to avoid the risk of fruit flies. Luckily, Sophie’s geese get to work eating the fallen fruit. Thinning your fruit gives you large, good quality fruit, consistent cropping from year to year and most importantly strong healthy trees for the future.

Featured Plants:
APPLE - Malus cv.
PEAR ‘BEURRE BOSC’ - Pyrus communis cv.
PLUM ‘MARIPOSA’ - Prunus salicina cv.
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[craigmetcalfe]

Wow! I think I have just stopped crying long enough to write this comment. I have never done this as I can't bring myself to do the thinning but now I know why it is necessary in some cases. Cheers! Lucky Geese!

[MickyBellRoberts]

Good morrning, a very good video as usual.

[pennylane]

Thank you Sophie for showing how to do that, great information!

[teenee]

Sophie interested in buying a wholesale nursery? There be a local one with management issue that might run into the ground which would be sad for South Australia ☹️