QuestionI get a lot of necterines on the tree. When they get to about the size of a quarter, they quit growing and dry up.Is my tree lacking something? (Missouri)
AnswerHi Lawrence...I learn so much about my trees when questions like yours come in. I googled around and found a great article that answers your question better than I could say it. You may need to plant more flowers to help bees come to your yard.
Fruit Dropping from Trees Now
In late May or early June when fruit are about one-half inch to one inch in diameter, it's not unusual for home gardeners to become alarmed about lots of fruit falling off their backyard orchard trees. Even though alarming, it's not unusual for this shedding of fruit to occur. The phenomenon is called "June drop."
Why would a healthy fruit tree drop so much of its fruit? It's because the tree has set more fruit than it can support with water and nutrients. It's hard to believe, but fruit scientists say that if you have good full bloom on an apple tree, only about one bloom out of twenty is needed to produce a good crop. When too many of the blossoms set fruit, the tree sheds the fruit it can't support. The smaller fruit and the fruit that may not have received complete pollination are the first ones to fall.
June drop is the natural way a tree thins its crop load to allow the strongest and biggest fruit to mature. Even with June drop, many fruit trees still need additional hand thinning by gardeners who want to insure good fruit size and tastier fruit. The more fruit left on a tree, the smaller they will be at maturity. Heavy crop loads of maturing fruit can also lead to limb breakage. Also, allowing an overload of fruit one year can significantly reduce the crop the following year.
If you find your fruit tree has successfully set a good crop of fruit, you should consider hand thinning to achieve a crop of good-sized, good-tasting fruit. Thinning by hand should be done early in the season before the fruit reach one-inch in diameter. Thinning later will reduce the effectiveness of the process on fruit size and quality.
How many fruit should you leave on a tree? That depends on the type of fruit. Over the years, horticulturists have determined the recommended spacing of fruit on fruit tree branches for each type of fruit.
Apples - 6-8 inches between fruit, leaving only one fruit per cluster, keeping the largest fruit when possible
Pears - 6-8 inches between fruit, leaving only one fruit per cluster, keeping the largest fruit when possible
Peaches, nectarines, and large plums - 3-5 inches between fruit
Apricots & plums - 2-4 inches between fruit on the branch
Cherries - seldom need thinning
Fruit drop from poor pollination also occurs earlier in the season, soon after the petals fall from the blooms. It's less noticeable than June drop because the fruit are so small. The cause of this drop is a lack of pollination or poor fertilization. (Fertilization is when the sperm from the pollen reaches the ovules in the seeds.)
Some types of fruit trees are "self-unfruitful" and need pollen from another variety to set fruit. Self-unfruitful trees include most varieties of apple, pears, sweet cherry, and Japanese and American plums. Other types of fruit trees are "self-fruitful" and do not need cross pollination to produce fruit, but their fruit set may sometimes be enhanced by bee activity and some cross pollination. These include most varieties of sour cherries, apricots, peaches, and European plums. Lack of bee activity due to a low bee population, bad weather, or competition from nearby flowers are common causes of early fruit drop. Weather extremes, especially frost, can also interfere with pollination and fertilization.
If lots of fruit are dropping from your trees right now, don't worry. It's just "June drop." You may still need to take off additional fruit to insure quality fruit.
