OSU Extension Fruit Management

Do you have your bareroot fruit trees ordered? Planting in mid-Feb to March is a great time if the weather cooperates. What type of trees are planning to plant this spring?

How do you enjoy your apple harvest? These Enterprise & Fuji have been eaten as snacks and peeled and sliced for the freezer. This past weekend, I made apple pie filling for the freezer and chunky applesauce. We will appreciate our harvest in the next few months with a nice big apple pie!

Do you still have apples ripening in your trees? You may consider picking them if temps in your area will drop to 28 degrees during the next couple of nights. If frozen, apples may still be useful for applesauce or cider but won't store or bake properly.

Enterprise vs. Fuji. Time to harvest the Fuji and some of the Enterprise. Fuji are sweeter. Enterprise are sweet and tart. Both are very firm and crisp.

Sunset on Enterprise and Fuji apples.

This pomegranate is a little late to be flowering this year. Makes for some pretty color but no fruit!

Here’s a few figs from my container plants at home. (Celeste is in-ground). The research station figs are much smaller. The Marseille was supposed to be a white. It is large and tastes good. The eye is open and has lots of ants. The VDB easily splits but very dark purple coloring. The Si Emma has produced more than any other. The Celeste have just started ripening this last week.

A hungry robber fly is feeding on a western honey bee (Apis mellifera). This beneficial insect feeds on many types of insects. He just happened to find this honey bee in the vineyard at Perkins.

Getting lots of figs every other day. The big one is not true to type but it’s huge. They do look like they split more the the others. The dark purple in front is Violette deBordeaux, the two big ones were supposed to be white Marseille, the rest and most prolific is Si Emma.

Anyone growing almonds? Almonds are actually not nuts but drupes. They are in the Prunus genus with peaches, cherries and other stone fruits. Almonds are very early blooming similar to apricots. There are a few hardier types like All in One and Hall’s Hardy. These were grown this year in the Stillwater area. Removing the husk early and allowing them to dry properly are key to quality and storage.

Wine grape clusters still hanging in the vineyard at the research station. I’m surprised the birds, deer and green june beetles haven’t cleaned house.

Hosui Asian pear is almost there. Not many fruits in the tree but I taste tested one this morning. Asian pears can be harvested when they taste good to you unlike most European pears that should be ripened off the tree. This pear was nice and juicy but not much flavor. I’ll try another later this week or next week.

Grasshoppers have been about the only pest to affect the figs. They started stripping leaves and now they found the fruit.

Violette were super sweet & sticky but more ripe. The Si Emma was sweet and had more floral flavor. The unknown were ugly but still tasted fine.

Starting to get more figs each day. These are all container plants with automatic watering. Violette deBordeaux, Si Emma, and an unknown variety.

Harvested a few Asian pears today. I got to share some with new friends at the Taft Market Gardening class offered by Langston University. They had never experienced an Asian pear or fresh fig. My job is fun! Didn’t have many pears due to the lack of chilling hours messing with bloom timing but the few that grew are delicious!

Managing Broad Mite in Blackberry

Are you growing blackberries? Have you seen any leaf cupping on the primocanes? It could be broad mites. Check out Univ of Arkansas’s Aaron Cato’s blog on scouting and treating broad mites.

Managing Broad Mite in Blackberry Broad mite numbers are on the rise in Arkansas blackberries and the time is now to get out and scout your fields!

Today’s ripe picking of peaches. These are from three trees. The top group is Loring, yellow-fleshed freestone. The bottom two are supposed to be Redhaven that should have ripened weeks ago. This is why I recommend buying fruit trees from nurseries specializing in fruit tree sales. The Redhaven trees were purchased at local farm stores and are not true varieties. They will be good peach trees but not the type advertised. I’d rather have fruit over several weeks instead of all ripening at similar times.

When do you pick your Asian pears? Hopefully before the critters! I checked the Drippin Honey this morning. When you lift the pear to the side, if it releases easily, it’s probably time to pick. When they taste good to you, they are good to go!
European pears should be harvested early and chilled for a few days to a few weeks (variety dependent) and left to ripen at room temperature. If European pears are soft on the tree, they’re probably overripe in the middle.

Picked one of the bagged Loring peaches this evening. It was beautiful and so juicy! The best peach I’ve had in years!

Last evening took a drive through the fruit demo block at Cimarron Valley Research Station. Found a lot of wildlife damage to the peach/nectarines that were getting close to harvest time. The few remaining Souvenirs peach and Bowden white nectarines were harvested. A few Redhaven fruits were also picked.

Si Emma fig has a large crop load. This weekend, a timer with small sprinklers were set up to water the containers that are drying out quickly with the hot temperatures and winds.

Kiefer pears trained to the espalier method. These trees are producing fruit at The Botanic Garden at Oklahoma State University.

July Rose peach is coloring up nicely. This is a New Jersey release that is white-fleshed and has a very pretty red color. The fruit is firm and very sweet. It is touted to ripen about a week prior to Redhaven. I will post a taste review when I harvest soon. Anyone else growing July Rose?

Ever see one or two peaches that are more ripe than others on the tree? They turn color and soften earlier than the others?

Well, sometimes that means that the peach has some issues. This peach picked this morning had many entry holes and a patch of brown rot developing.

Inside there were at least 2 active plum curculio larvae enjoying some delicious peach.

Insecticide & fungicide applications are needed every 10-14 days to prevent this type of damage.

Pawpaws at The Botanic Garden at Oklahoma State University. The trees had many blooms but only a few fruit are developing.

A severe Fireblight infection on a 20th Century Asian Pear at the Cimarron Valley Research Station this morning. This advanced very rapidly this past week. We removed all shoots and limbs with Fireblight infection to try to save the tree. The bacterial disease was very widespread in the limbs (blackened tissue). Not an ideal time to remove so much growth, but if left unpruned, the Fireblight would likely continue to spread throughout the tree and may kill it this season.

* Use resistant apple & pear cultivars when available
* Limit nitrogen and irrigation for slow growth (hard to turn off rainfall)
* Use a fireblight spray during bloom every 3-4 days or copper soap products as per directions
* If infection occurs, remove tissue back at least 6-8 inches into healthy wood
* Disinfect pruners between sprays (lysol, bleach mix)
* Bag & remove diseased tissue from area

Thinning Fruit for Better Quality Produce

Peach fruit thinning & Fruit Bags were discussed on this week's Oklahoma Gardening episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mL6qbyHJvs

Thinning Fruit for Better Quality Produce Becky Carroll, OSU Extension fruit and pecan specialist, tells us why leaving only a few select fruit on our trees can produce better quality fruit.How to Us...

My 2022 sour cherry crop.

Melonberry CHE has a few fruits developing. I wish I had noticed earlier to see blooms. Anyone with experience growing CHE?

Doing some interior summer shoot thinning will help increase air flow and sunlight and reduce the amount of pruning next spring. These shoots if removed while tender can be pulled without cutting. Just be sure not to rip the bark.

Great topics for anyone interested in growing and producing food for your family or for profit.

With all the fruit you will be harvesting this season, you'll want to make some jams or jellies! Check out the workshop below.

Canning that prized garden harvest is a great way to enjoy a fresh taste year round, but for those less seasoned in the canning process, where do you begin?!

Oklahoma State University Extension educators with Lincoln County Extension, Okfuskee County OSU Extension FCS and Okmulgee County OSU Extension will help explain the water-bath canning process in a joint workshop on June 8 in Paden, Oklahoma.

See details here: https://okla.st/3sFUGWS

Here’s an option for those that want reduced spray fruit. You still need to start your spray schedule at petal fall but after thinning, apply one last fungicide application. The next day, use fruit bags to cover and protect your fruit for the remainder of the season. These bags from Clemson University, will keep insect feeding and disease spores from damaging the fruit. Fruit ripen inside the bag. Takes some extra time, but sprays aren’t needed after bagging. Will work on peaches, apples, pears and other fruits. It might even confuse the squirrels and birds and reduce loss to critters.

Time to thin your peaches. Four to six inches between fruit or even more for larger peaches. Remove those that have insect damage, doubles or small. Leave the largest undamaged fruit for best quality. Thinning now will ensure most benefit to trees. Overcrowded trees may lose limbs to breakage, will produce small fruit or fruit that won’t ripen properly.

Violette deBordeaux figs in the field setting a few figs this spring.