Hi all. In early 80's I made a study about determinism of peach fruit size and fruit quality with the scope of giving some clever briefing to peach pruners and hand thinners. At that time we were not that trapped in computers, we were more at the fields trials but our filing (paper folders) was poor... It just remains my memory...
Parameters involved in the study included characteristics of the shoot, behavior of the shoot in the season, position of the fruit, size of the fruit, date of flowering... Main conclusions were Good quality fruits (sugar index), with right size (no splitting) belong to a shoot that have an average growth in the season. The shoot must be not too weak not too strong and must remain above horizontal. The shoot must have the right number of fruit depending on the variety potential. And to answer more directly your question the fruit must be on the upper part of the shoot (mainly for colour exposed to light) and at the base of the shoot. Better to have 3 fruits with 5 cm distance between each other at the base than 3 fruits 20 cm apart. I don't remember details about flowering date, but I think it was related to ripening date more than to commercial final size itself. Though I would agree with you that I would always consider keeping the biggers, which is the natural behavior of the field worker. At that time we also experimented with mechanical thinning on peaches and plums. When you use shakers you make the bigger fruit fall while the smallers remain on the tree. If you reach the target in terms of number of fruit on the tree, you have a very small impact in the range of fruit size. This point is easier to verify. This was not published, not peer reviewed so it has to be considered with this in mind. It was done with varieties with a mixt shoot flowering habit, and not on spurs flowering habit like some modern varieties. Jean Marc Jourdain Ctifl France www.ctifl.fr www.fruits-et-legumes.net -----Message d'origine----- De : apple-crop@virtualorchard.net [mailto:apple-c...@virtualorchard.net] De la part de Mark Longstroth Envoyé : lundi 3 mai 2010 11:41 À : 'Apple-Crop' Objet : RE: Apple-Crop: Different sized peach fruitlets- Does size matter? The larger fruit are always larger. The initial phase of fruit growth is by cell division, so the larger fruit have more cells than the smaller fruit. Later after pit hardening, the fruit grows by cell division, so the larger fruit has the potential to grow more than the smaller fruit since if all the cells doubled in size the larger fruit would grow more because it had more cells to double in size. ******************************* Mark Longstroth MSUE Fruit Educator http://www.canr.msu.edu/vanburen/disthort.htm -----Original Message----- From: apple-crop@virtualorchard.net [mailto:apple-c...@virtualorchard.net] On Behalf Of Mark Angermayer Sent: Sunday, May 02, 2010 9:14 AM To: Apple-Crop Subject: Apple-Crop: Different sized peach fruitlets- Does size matter? Re: Apple-Crop: Dodine and captane fungicides applied duriThere is plenty written about distance and placement when hand thinning peaches, but I have a question about the size of different fruitlets. I've heard it claimed that the larger fruitlets on a shoot, will be larger at maturity than the smaller fruitlets on the same shoot. Is there any truth to that, or do the smaller fruitlets "catch up", after the shoot is thinned? In other words, when hand thinning should the smaller fruitlets be automatically discarded because they are small? Mark Angermayer Tubby Fruits Bucyrus KS -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 'Apple-Crop' LISTSERV is sponsored by the Virtual Orchard <http://www.virtualorchard.net> and managed by Win Cowgill and Jon Clements <webmas...@virtualorchard.net>. Apple-Crop is not moderated. Therefore, the statements do not represent "official" opinions and the Virtual Orchard takes no responsibility for the content. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 'Apple-Crop' LISTSERV is sponsored by the Virtual Orchard <http://www.virtualorchard.net> and managed by Win Cowgill and Jon Clements <webmas...@virtualorchard.net>. Apple-Crop is not moderated. Therefore, the statements do not represent "official" opinions and the Virtual Orchard takes no responsibility for the content. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 'Apple-Crop' LISTSERV is sponsored by the Virtual Orchard <http://www.virtualorchard.net> and managed by Win Cowgill and Jon Clements <webmas...@virtualorchard.net>. Apple-Crop is not moderated. Therefore, the statements do not represent "official" opinions and the Virtual Orchard takes no responsibility for the content.
