If you're new here in this series, welcome. If you wish to catch up at some point, feel free to check out the three previous posts, where I talk about planting, maintenance, and blossom seasons in an orchard.
When the blossoms in an orchard begin turning into little apples, it's time for the fruit farmer to begin thinning the apples. This is done by two different methods, chemical thinning and hand thinning. The purpose of both methods is to remove some of the apples in a cluster to provide more space and nourishment for the remaining apples.
Chemical thinning is done first, while the apples are still quite small. (soon after petal fall) The chemical is applied in a spray over the desired block of trees. Because the quantity and quality of the apple crop rests a great deal on the thinning process, considerable attention is given to calculation of amounts, concentration, and timing of the chemical application. In general, the chemical works by restricting the amount of carbohydrates going to the tiny fruit, causing some wee apples in the cluster to fall off the tree, giving greater space and nourishment to the ones remaining.
Although the photos above were not taken during the apple thinning season, they show the equipment and process used to apply chemical thinner to the trees.
Another important piece of equipment that I failed to mention in the last post of this orchard series is the frost fan. When the trees are in blossom stage, overnight freezing temperatures are a great hazard. Frost fans can help create air movement which basically shifts the warmer air that has risen above the trees down to replace the cooler, heavier air close to the ground, thus raising the overall orchard temperature by as much as several degrees, enough to save a crop from frost damage. Blossoms that have been touched by frost will soon show signs of damage by turning brown; blooms that have been killed will turn black inside, shrivel up and fall off the tree. This is not the kind of thinning an apple farmer wants!
Following the chemical thinning is any hand thinning that the farmer wishes to implement. Workers pick off the excess apples from the trees by hand. In the center of the apple clusters, what was the king bloom likely has become the biggest and hardiest apple in the lot. Ideally, that middle apple will remain on the tree and most of the side apples of the cluster will be removed.
After workers have passed through a block of trees doing their hand thinning work, the orchard floor is littered with many small apples.
Pruning is another very involving job in an orchard. Excess branches, including vigorous top shoots are lopped off the trees with large pruning shears. (I think loppers is another name for them, not surprisingly.)
Normally pruning begins early in the spring, sometimes while there is still snow on the ground and long before the trees bloom or show fruit. This year, because Covid restrictions and regulations delayed the arrival of our offshore workers, pruning got off to a later start. Some of it was done while the trees were in blossom stage.
Some pruning was done long after blossom stage, too. In the photo above, you can see the difference in the appearance of the trees before and after their "haircut". The trees on the left do not have sprouting tops like their unpruned brothers on the right.
When the trees are pruned much later than normal in the season, the branchy mess underneath is much leafier and greener than usual. Typically, after the pruning is done, a worker takes a branch chopper through the orchard. This piece of equipment sweeps the branches out from under the trees and into swaths for chopping. The finely-chopped branches become a sort of mulch for the trees.
These last three photos show some "extra-curricular" scenes in the orchard. The robin's nest in the first photo was fairly low in the tree, close enough to the ground for some creature to get at it easily and destroy the young birdlets in the getting. The other bird crop in the second photo was raised successfully as far as we know, even though it looks like a growing apple is locking the mama bird on her nest forever. Does anyone wish to caption the third photo? I'd love to hear your ideas.
In the next and final post in the Orchard Days series, I plan to focus on the harvesting aspect of raising apples.
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