Mechanical Blossom Thinner Boosts Fruit Tree Yields

Mechanical Blossom Thinner Boosts Fruit Tree Yields CROPS New Techniques Fruit growers have known for years that removing some of the blossoms from their trees can result in larger fruit with optimum quality But doing the job by hand is nearly impossible This new “mechanical blossom thinner” does the job automatically The blossom thinner 3-pt mounts on front of a tractor and operates off tractor hydraulics It consists of a 10-ft high metal arm fitted with numerous 2-ft long injection-molded plastic strings evenly spaced along a vertical spindle The operator simply drives down one side of the row of fruit trees allowing the rotating plastic strings to knock off some of the blossoms A handheld control unit is used to monitor the spindle rpm’s “It works on almost any kind of fruit tree including peaches nectarines plums apricots cherries and apples ” says North American distributor Matt Peters of Bartlett Inc Beamsville Ont “The science of removing flowers isn’t new This machine just makes it a lot more efficient It’s especially useful for early varieties that don’t get big fruit A lot of our sales go to peach growers where no chemical blossom thinner is available “The idea was developed by a German company We’re a partner with them and make the equipment using their design and components We make two models The PT model is a vertical machine while the Darwin model can be rotated to either a vertical or horizontal position allowing you to thin blossoms off the top of the tree as well We’re working on a machine equipped with sensors to monitor the rate of blossom thinning and one that will allow us to offer a 3-pt unit for the back of the tractor ” The PT model sells for about $11 000 and the Darwin model for about $16 000 Contact: FARM SHOW Followup N M Bartlett Inc 4509 Bartlett Rd Beamsville Ont Canada L0R 1B1 ph 800 263-1287 or 905 563-8261; info@bartlett ca; www bartlett ca

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