Sorry guys, just saw this post, I've been busy with the 270 more apple trees I planted. Apple trees get into bi-annual bearing because of boom and bust cycles. They put on way too many apples one year, which stresses the tree, breaks and deforms branches then yield a very large amount of small stunted apples. The next year it won't set any fruit. To combat this chemical thinners are used with a complex carbohydrate loading model to determine appropriate fruit load for the caliper size of the tree. The tree is sprayed and this encourages the apple tree to ideally drop 80% of the fruit. The net effect is large very nice apples and more fruiting spurs set for the next year.
I'll have to tell this to my dad, he has apple trees and sometimes wonders why some bloom and some fruit and dont. At least one was notorious for not fruiting.
There is only one downside: The two chemicals I use cost $300 to buy in the minimum size available. However one was a 20 year supply and the other 25 year supply.
Sometimes I forget I have left questions unanswered. Wood Duck, trees are sometimes massive here, they grow fast due to our fluctuating temps and wet and warm springs and falls, the temp in Western washington doesn't fall below 20 degrees, often ever. Short freezes in the teens but its not often we have that lasting more than a couple days. In perspective Trees continue to grow rapidly but what they make uo for size they lack in age. The grain isn't as tight and many trees head for their own happy hunting ground during wind storms here. Most people take consideration about the wind and kinds of trees they should take down. The cottonwood and the cedar are most often trees that are too weak in these storms and can uproot or just plain drop limbs. This was likely cottonwood now that I look back, the corewood is often a dark brown when fresh and turns the white when dried out or opened up and split. In return, theres often a massive influx of trees that are being cut or asked to be cut and then given away. Lots of firewood in March and April. Now I have in upwards of 5-6 cord if I measured out roughly. One of my neighbors had a 16 foot section of black locust fall on his fence last october and I hear a knock on my door around the time this post was originally done. I wasn't sure what the wood was at the time. Just happy enough to take it off his hands. Lots of trees fell during this year, the rain was torrential at times so trees were amazingly heavy.
