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Cider Digest #1710
Subject: Cider Digest #1710, 7 May 2012
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1710 7 May 2012
Cider and Perry Discussion Forum
Contents:
Revisiting fruit thinning (Donald Davenport)
Juice for sweetening (rcschoeler@yahoo.com)
Re: kingston Black (Dick Dunn)
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Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn
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Subject: Revisiting fruit thinning
From: Donald Davenport <djdavenport@earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2012 06:55:02 -0600
Hello all--
Between fairly young trees and late frosts, dealing with an abundant
fruit set hasn't been a problem the last few years. But, this year
(hopefully) looks different. Some of the trees
look to be quite loaded, so I thought I'd ask what the most current
thinking is on thinning for cider production.
It seems like there are three issues: 1.) Physical damage potential to
the trees. 2.) Size of fruit. 3.) Breaking biennial bearing
tendencies.
#1 and #3 seem pretty obvious. It's #2 that I'm most curious about.
Where do the lines cross between more, smaller apples and fewer larger,
apples in terms of juice production? Does it
matter?
I had been following the "One fruit per cluster, six inches apart" rule
favored by a lot of table fruit hobbyist growers, but then I see on the
internet these videos of English cider makers and their trees (some of
the same varieties as mine) are absolutely loaded, with multiple fruit
per cluster, carrying probably 5X the fruit I would ever consider
letting the tree carry.
So, I thought I'd ask.
Thoughts?
Tnx.
Donald Davenport
Santa Fe, NM=
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Subject: Juice for sweetening
From: rcschoeler@yahoo.com
Date: Mon, 7 May 2012 07:08:54 -0400
Due to a mild winter and cool spring my naturally fermented cider is still
finishing in the basement and I am beginning to formulate a bottling plan
which last year included sweetening with Trader Joe's 100% MacIntosh juice.
The bottled product is then either pasteurized or refrigerated. While I
am not unhappy with the results, what brand name (apple) juices are others
using for back-sweetening with good results.
Richard S.
Sent from my iPad=
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Subject: Re: kingston Black
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2012 15:50:21 -0600
Jack Feil wrote in the last CD that he suspected his KBs were blooming but
not setting fruit because they weren't getting pollinated. He mentioned
"assuming they are not self fruitful" which is basically correct; it's a
diploid like most.
Jack, the answer might be just to plant more cider varieties, which as
a -very- rough rule are later blooming than table or culinary types.
Just for example, my White Jersey and Major bloomed about the same time
as KB, and Dabinett were even later although still overlapping KB enough.
(And Stoke Red is only starting to open now!) Naturally you may get
way different bloom times than I do, but with a few cider sorts you may
find one that gives you a useful overlap.
While I'm thinking of it, Copas mentions about KB that it has "...poor,
malformed, almost stemless flowers overlooked by pollinating insects."
(Yet another reason we like KB so much in the orchard:-) And it seemed
to me that the KB bloom period was very short here this year.
Semi-related: This year my Sweet Coppin seemed to bloom for a good two
weeks. This is only the third year for them bearing at all, so I don't
have experience to say whether this is a characteristic of the variety
or a fluke of this year's weather. Anybody out there know? It just
seemed interesting, and in the context of Jack's question made me wonder
if this would make it a good pollinating variety.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
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End of Cider Digest #1710
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