Apple trees often produce excess fruit. Removing some of these extra fruits during the next three weeks is important. There can be two major benefits from fruit thinning. The first is to help ensure a return bloom for a good fruit crop next year. Apples produce fruit buds for next year’s crop during June; the same time this year’s fruit is maturing. Too many fruit this year leads to a lack of fruit bud development and a small crop next year. This leads to biennial bearing in which an apple tree produces a large crop one year and very few fruit the next. Thinning helps ensure that apples are produced each year.
The second benefit of thinning is to promote larger fruit on this year’s crop. Generally, an average spacing throughout a tree of about 4 inches per fruit is sufficient for a good return crop next year, as well as a desirable size on the fruits to be harvested this fall. (Ward Upham)
