Apple tree

[BAGGIE]

we have a smallish apple tree with hundreds of small apples growing, last year i left them and we got small fruit lots not worth eating, so my Q is can i snip the fruit now and hope for bigger apples when they mature. thanks dave.

[taff]

you can thin them out yes,but I have no idea which ones you're supposed to pick iff.

[Nicos]

Just bumping this for you baggie

[rustylady]

Hi Baggie. How big is "smallish", do you know which variety of apple it is, and where is it growing?

[Florence Fennel]

I haven't a clue what sort my small tree is, my children bought it for me years ago before I was even interested in growing fruit and veg. Last year I had only 2 apples on it (the tree is about 10 years old) having had loads of small ones the year before. This year there are shed loads on it, so after the June "drop" (when loads of little ones drop off naturally), I picked off some that were bunched together. They come off quite easily and I'm hoping that I'll still get plenty of larger apples this time.

[rustylady]

The fruits normally set in clusters, and I believe you should thin to one fruit per cluster. OK if you have a tree that you can reach!!!

[Snadger]

I let nature thin mine out with the June/July drop! If the type of apple is a small variety I'm not sure that any ammount of thinning will increase the size of apples?

[FB.]

I haven't a clue what sort my small tree is, my children bought it for me years ago before I was even interested in growing fruit and veg. Last year I had only 2 apples on it (the tree is about 10 years old) having had loads of small ones the year before. This year there are shed loads on it, so after the June "drop" (when loads of little ones drop off naturally), I picked off some that were bunched together. They come off quite easily and I'm hoping that I'll still get plenty of larger apples this time.

Apples are of the best size, colour and quality if you have only one or two per cluster of flowers.
However, in poor years, you may have most flower clusters with no fruits and a few flower clusters with several fruits. This causes a bit of a problem in that the crop will be very light if you thin to just one per cluster, but the other problem is that there isn't usually enough sapflow to support full development of a big cluster of six apples. I would suggest no more than four per cluster in that instance.
At this time of year, apple trees should naturally drop about half of all the fruits, which then thins them to the correct density, although it varies from one variety to another.
Some varieties always have a heavy drop of fruitlets and only carry a light crop in the best years.
Some varieties don't drop many fruitlets, meaning that quite often, the tree produces a large crop of crab-apple sized fruits in one year and nothing in the next. However, in areas with poor pollination (cool, dull, damp, windy etc), these exceptionally fertile varieties can be useful to guarantee a good fruit set.

When it comes to thinning:

Some varieties will naturally thin themselves and won't need your help.

The following may be useful, but use some discretion, since you don't want to end up snipping off all the fruit!

Wait until after the June drop (which can run into early July)

Remove damaged fruits (split, pest damaged, scabbed etc).

Thin to an average one apple every four inches.

Thin to an average of one apple per cluster.

Thin to an average of one apple per ten leaves on the tree.

Try to retain the largest apple in the cluster, although you are best to lose the mis-shapen central apple if one of the others is almost as large: even though the central fruit is often the largest; being mis-shapen encourages splitting, branch rubbing, or disease.

[chrisguk]

It's also recommended to thin out the king apple of every cluster, which is the fruit that sets in the middle of each cluster; apparently it grows large and disfigured. But then again i suppose that should only be an issue should it be going to market.