Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/514197
34 JUNE 2015 GOOD FRUIT GROWER www.goodfruit.com H oneycrisp apples are precocious and profuse bloomers, and with the value of their fruit being so high, every apple on a young tree is like a 50-cent piece hanging there. Growers must resist the temptation to harvest too many of those coins too early. "You need to grow the tree first," says Cornell University horticulturist Dr. Terence Robinson. "Honeycrisp sets more flowers than most culti- vars and needs to be managed right, right from the start. We need to take off most of those early fruits. Honeycrisp has only half the shoot growth of other cultivars." Not only will an overcropped young tree not grow quickly to fill its space, too many apples one year lead to a lack of return bloom. Of all the varieties, he said, Honeycrisp is one of the easiest to send into a pattern of biennial bearing. Robinson recommends that growers use strict crop load management on young Honeycrisp to favor growth and control biennial bearing. Aim for four fruits per square centimeter of trunk cross-sectional area in the second and third leaf, five in the fourth, and six fruits in the fifth year. After that, he says, change to a target number of fruit per tree and don't use trunk size as a determiner. "Older trees can carry more apples," he said. Crop load should be adjusted during or shortly after bloom on trees two to four years of age, he said. Remove all fruit on the upper two to three feet of the leader in years two and three, and do not allow any fruit to remain on trees that are not growing as fast as desired. If growers do everything right, they should be able to obtain yields of 1,500 bushels per acre per year when trees reach full production in a tall spindle planting spaced 3 feet by 12 feet, with 1,200 trees per acre. Each tree, at that time, should be pruned to about 180 flower buds and then thinned to about 100 fruits per tree through aggressive chemical thinning, which would generate the 120,000 80-count apples needed to achieve that yield. Three factors These recommendations were part of a presenta- tion Robinson made during a Honeycrisp Intensive Management workshop in Halifax, Nova Scotia, during the International Fruit Tree Association's annual conference there in February. "Our studies have shown that three management factors have a large impact on Honeycrisp fruit quality and should be managed by growers very precisely," he said. "They are fruit load, fruit nitrogen content, and irrigation." Optimizing these variables should reduce bitter pit, reduce biennial bearing, and improve fruit quality both at harvest and after storage, he said. New Varieties Crop load management is critical for return bloom and good tree growth. by Richard Lehnert HONEYCRISP Managing young Terence Robinson Get the Chinook FAN BLADE ADVANTAGE! TRITON V-10 TRITON 5.4 PROPANE FUEL INJECTION IVECO NEF 6.7 DIESEL 2921 Sutherland Park Drive Yakima, WA 98903-1891 ENGINEERING RELIABILITY & PERFORMANCE I've been doing business with H.F. Hauff Company since 1978. They engineer their products with a farmer's needs in mind and have tre- mendous integrity. I like the fact that they stay in touch with their growers. • Victair Sprayers are reliable and built to use for a long time. Application windows can be short and you just can't afford to have down time. Any necessary repairs are simple to make. • Wind machines are my insurance plan. In today's world, you cannot afford to lose a crop. If you save just a quarter of a crop, you have paid for the machines. • No under-prop dead-air zone The way other props are designed, they don't push air down around the tower like the Chinook blade. • The Chinook puts out 30% more air, so you can stretch the towers out farther or get more air movement • 30% savings in fuel, it's huge! Chinook wind machines use less fuel because the machines are more efficient. BILL HENRI NAMPA, CALIFORNIA I've been doing I've been doing business with H.F. business with H.F. Hauff Company since Hauff Company since 1978. They engineer 1978. They engineer their products with their products with a farmer's needs in a farmer's needs in mind and have tre- mind and have tre- mendous integrity. mendous integrity. I like the fact that I like the fact that they stay in touch they stay in touch with their growers. with their growers. • • reliable and built to reliable and built to use for a long time. use for a long time. Application windows Application windows BILL HENRI BILL HENRI 509-248-0318 fax 509-248-0914 hfhauff@gmail.com www.hfhauff.com TOLL FREE 855-855-0318