Due to the freeze on the night of May 18th, many fruits were severely injured and subsequent thinners were either not applied or, if they were, used at low rates. It was observed that many fruits had a reduced number of seeds, however fruit harvested were very large. This project is to see if a relationship between seed number and fruit size exists. At normal harvest, large fruits were selected and fruit was weighed. Fruit diameter and the number of aborted and viable seeds were recorded for each apple. There was no correlation between fruit size and seed number.
Results: Currently ongoing. A paper on this topic will be presented at the annual Fruit Thinning meeting of the European Thinning group in Prague, Yugoslavia in February 2024 and at the Northeast Plant Growth Regulator Working meeting group in Wilkes-Barre PA in March 2024.
