Maximize Fruit Size! Part 2

Maximize Fruit Size! Part 2. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Fruit size…yes, size does matter. Not only does the consumer like it, it is more profitable for the grower. Peter Hirst from Purdue University recently discussed fruit size at the annual Hort convention and said it boils down to three different parts, genetic, cultural and environmental.

HIRST: And then if you break it down a little more, under the genetic aspect cultivar is the big one. Rootstock tree age may have an effect but cultivar is really big. Under cultural thinning and pruning are real important but there’s also training, pollination and all these other things that no doubt play a role. And the same with environment, temperature and light are the two big ones but there’s lots of other things that come into play.

He says it’s important to maximize all these things in the orchard to increase fruit size.

HIRST: In our studies we focused on a couple of things within each of these areas. In genetic we looked at what different cultivars have and we included crabapples in this because you know as well as I do that you can get your pollination, your fertilization, your pruning, your light, everything perfect with a crabapple and it’s still going to be this big.

Hirst says they thought the crabapple would be interesting to include in the study.

HIRST: In environment we looked at temperature and we constructed these field houses made out of polythene out in the field to elevate our temperatures out in the field to see what effect elevated early season temperatures would have.

We’ll continue tomorrow.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.