Heavy fruit loads have created a problem for Owari satsuma rootstock trials in Valdosta, University of Georgia Extension agent and Lowndes County Extension Coordinator Jake Price reported recently.
“It has been a struggle the last month or so to keep fruit off the ground because of the heavy fruit load,” says Price. “Fruit touching the ground will rot and fall off, which is not good because we are measuring the fruit each tree produces to see what the maximum yields are for each rootstock. It is also a food safety issue as soil is splashed onto the low fruit.”
According to Price, trees were skirted and pruned at the beginning of February last year to make sure major limbs were near 2 feet off the ground to try to prevent this problem (Figure 1). The same tree is loaded with fruit in Figure 2.
Some limbs that are 4 feet off the ground are so bent over, they need to be propped up, says Price. “I have been using metal H-shaped sign braces to keep limbs and fruit off the ground. I can reuse these each year, and they store easily,” he says.
Price points out that with such heavy fruit loads, the overall size of the fruit is smaller, and there will be less cull fruit than last year. “This is a good thing,” he says. “Some of the upper limbs have broken due to the fruit load, but it could be worse if we were to have stormy weather. Hopefully that will not happen before we harvest.”
“It’s amazing how the trees will snap back after removing all the fruit,” adds Price. “We will be skirting the trees up even higher next year and remove or prune long lower branches to reduce this problem. This will also help miticides penetrate the canopy better. A raised canopy and applying more volume will help control those rust mites next year.”
Learn more about the Owari rootstock trials.
Source: University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension Cold Hardy Citrus Connection newsletter
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