Kyle’s News and Reviews

The time for pruning fruit trees is now and with the warmer temperatures that we have had over the last couple of days, there might even be some blooming on certain varieties.  I once thought that pruning fruit trees was really an art but in reality it is just a lot of hard work.  

Every summer there are several people that bring in fruit, whether it be plums, peaches, pears, etc. with the same complaint – the fruit is just too small.  Since becoming an Extension agent I have had the liberty of going to several pruning trainings and the most important thing that I have learned is if you think you have pruned a tree enough keep pruning some more.  

The reason that most fruit trees don’t produce large juicy fruit like we buy from fruit stands is because we let our trees carry to many blooms into fruit.  In other words the trees cannot produce large fruit on every bloom.  The Extension Fruit Specialist has told me several times to prune or pinch off at least 90 percent of the blooms on a tree if you want grocery store size fruit.
 

Over the weekend we hosted a 4-H Shooting sports safety meeting at the Multi-purpose building and after the meeting I started feeling pretty bad.  Naturally I went home and got in the bed. When my wife came home from a family birthday party with my boys, she insisted on taking me to a clinic in Grenada.  

I finally relented and agreed to go.  I was fearing the worst with the local epidemic of the flu going around but ultimately I ended up testing negative for the flu.  I feel much better now and am glad that I went to the clinic to be sure.