Thinning

View in browser Thinning Talking about the weather is a pretty typical way to start a conversation, especially when you don’t know what to say. It is classic small talk for most people. But for farmers, talking about the weather is essential business talk. The weather determines our livelihood. After a cool and wet June, we have suddenly been plunged into some real Okanagan summer heat! Some of our crops are loving it, such as all the vines: pumpkins, watermelon, squash, etc. The tomatoes, peppers and corn are growing like mad, trying to make up for lost time. The apples actually prefer things a little cooler, but they are also growing well. The heat will help increase their natural sugar-content, making for delicious fresh eating! The apple crop gets a lot of attention at this time of year from our farmers. You have often heard us refer to “thinning” the crop, but we don’t often explain what that means. So today I am going to dive in and take a closer look at what thinning is and why we do it. In the spring, our apple trees are covered in a stunning array of pink and white blossoms. Each one of those blossoms, if properly pollinated, will turn into an apple. If you look closely at the tree during blossom time you will see that the blossoms appear in clumps, usually with five or six blossoms per grouping. The middle blossom is called the King Bloom. It opens first and will usually be the largest apple of the group. During blossom, we go through the orchard with various forms of blossom thinners. These range from people with hand shears (this is the method for young trees that we want to take all the fruit off of) to sprays that make the tree abort some blossoms. We have to be very careful with these, as we do not want to lose too much fruit! After the fruit has set and we can see clearly how effective the blossom thinning has been, it is time to go through the entire orchard on foot and look at every apple - yes, every single apple! If an apple is damaged, it is removed to allow room for the good apples to grow. Each grouping that started off as five or six will be thinned down to only one or two apples, depending on the age of the tree and the variety of apple. Some groups will be removed altogether, because we want the apples to be at least six inches apart. The top branches of the tree are thinned a little heavier so that the tree has the weight of the apples distributed evenly. If a tree is not thinned, the quality of the fruit will be poor. The tree does not have enough energy to grow and sweeten that many apples, so the result is small, not very sweet fruit. Leaving on all of the apples puts the tree under a lot of stress. Sometimes branches, or even the tree trunk, will snap. Apple trees are naturally biannual bearers, meaning they tend to have a heavy crop one year and a light one the next. This can be managed quite well by careful thinning. If too many apples are left on the tree, it will likely have few (or sometimes no) apples the following year. The bottom line is that carefully thinning our trees every year is a long, labour-intensive job, but absolutely necessary to produce The Amazing Apples we are proud to grow and supply to our community! Before you know it Apple Harvest will be here. Rachel, for the family. P.S. Are you enjoying The Davison Orchards Cookbook? We’d love to hear from you! What do you love? What do you wish was included? Has a certain recipe become a family favourite? If you want to help us in promoting our book, we would be honoured if you would share about it on your social media or write us a review on Amazon. Thank you for all your support! Facebook Instagram Amazon Crop Update: Fruit Thinning One of the most time and money consuming summer jobs on the farm is what we call "fruit thinning". Watch the video and find out how we work to achieve quality and consistency in our apples. - FREE EVENT - Saturday July 20th from 11:00 am to 1:30 pm Have fun with pollinator scavenger hunt, colour your own pollinator picture and enjoy hummingbird storytime. Reserve a Spot "to be a sustainable farm business that builds loyal customers, fulfilled staff and positive memories in a wholesome environment for our community to enjoy." Davison Orchards 3111 Davison Road, Vernon 250-549-3266   Davisonorchards.ca I want to unsubscribe