Fruit Tree Overloaded with Fruit? Remove Excess for Tree Health and Fruit Production

Sometimes a healthy fruit tree will set too many fruits on the tree branches, causing the fruit tree branches to bend or even break. While the amount of fruit production may be exciting, it's not in the best interest of the fruit tree to leave all those small fruits on the tree.

Removing some of the small fruit will promote fruit tree health and the remaining fruit will grow larger. The optimum time for thinning fruit is when the fruit tree is in bloom. Each bloom represents a potential fruit, and thinning the blooms allows the fruit tree to focus it's energy on bringing the remaining blooms into fruition. For most of the nation, the fruit trees have already bloomed and set small green fruits, so it's too late for bloom removal. However, if your fruit tree is overloaded with fruit to the point that the branches are weighed down and look like they will break, you must thin some of the fruits or risk broken tree branches and tree damage as the fruit matures and becomes heavier.

If your fruit tree is overloaded with small fruit, shake the tree to remove some of the excess fruits, then step back and look at your fruit tree. Are the branches still bent down too low and look as though the will break as the fruits become larger? If so, it's time to hand pick some of the excess fruit off.

Gently pick off some the small fruits from all over the tree, try to balance out the number of small fruits left on each fruit tree branch if possible.

Pick a few fruits off, then step back and look at your fruit tree to judge if you have picked enough fruit off yet. Continue doing this until the fruit tree branches are almost back to their normal position. Some branch bending is expected and normal, just remember as the fruits grow and become heavier, the fruit tree branches will bend even more. If the branches are bent to the ground with small green fruits, the branches will break as the fruit grow larger and heavier.