Essay On Fruit Thinning

Fruit Thinning

Fruit thinning is hundreds of year old practice for manipulating the cropping and blooming of apple, pear and peach (Dennis, 2000). In papaya, it is not a common practice but found to be beneficial to improve the quality and overall yield. Fruit thinning is the removal of certain flowers/clusters of flowers or individual fruit after fruit set and/or natural dropping has occurred (Valenzuela, 1992). It is done to reduce limb breakage/lodging, increase fruit size, improve color and quality and stimulate floral initiation for next year’s crop (Westwood, 1993). Previously, fruits were thinned to a predetermined spacing but now size thinning is preferred. Size thinning is selective removal of small, weak fruit irrespective of spacing

al., 2010), citrus (Ouma, 2010), papaya (Martinez, 1988) which is due to increased cell division. Large size fruits have more cells, not larger cells than small fruits from the same tree. Similarly, fruit from light cropping trees in all cases have larger cells than do small fruit from heavy cropped plants (Ouma, 2010).

Effect of thinning on fruit shape:

Fruit shape can be best expressed by the ratio of its length to diameter. This is a very important economic parameter that facilitates the comparison of different fruit. It is also called relative fruit length. The bigger ratio shows more elongated the fruit. As the fruits commence growth the ratio decreases and finally levels off before harvest. Hand thinning at various times between bloom and harvest, causes more fruit elongation than controls. Fruit shape is affected differently by chemical thinners, thinners increase fruit elongation (Ouma, 2010). Similarly, fruit trees thinned early are more elongated and larger than those thinned later (Westwood,