Too many flowers on peach and apple trees are not necessarily a good thing.
If all flowers that formed in spring were allowed to become fruit, the resulting crop may be large, but the fruit would be small and unmarketable. Larger fruit commands a higher market price.
Fruit growers can spend lots of money to remove excess blossoms by hand. It’s tedious and time consuming and like chemical fruit thinning, it may be ineffective and expensive.
Scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture have been working on a more efficient way to reduce the number of blossoms on a tree to promote more profitable fruit.
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Plant physiologist Thomas Twork-oski and horticulturist Stephen Miller, researchers at the Appalachian Fruit Research Laboratory in Kearneysville, West Virginia, have experimented with using an essential oil plant extract to reduce the number of blossoms on a tree.
The new method involves spraying fruit trees with the natural plant product while the tree is in bloom. The plant extract damages the blossoms’ reproductive tissues and prevents pollination and fertilization. Flowers are sufficiently affected shortly after treatment.
The concentration of essential oil plant extract determines the degree of blossom fall. Tworkoski and Miller are fine-tuning the timing of application with the bloom cycles of various fruit trees including apples, peaches and pears.
A patent application has been submitted for the technology and the researchers are looking for co-operative research partners to assist with small field trials.
