Hello everyone, I just wanted to share with everyone some simple thing I do to increase the quality of the fruit I harvest from my trees. Please feel free to share your knowledge and experiences.
One thing I do to my fruit trees is to give them frequent diluted feedings of kelp extract before I expect the tree to flower all the way until after I harvest the fruit, so pretty much I give it kelp extract year round except the dead of winter when there are heavy rains and no growth on my trees. Kelp extract has many of the major, minor and trace elements/minerals that plants need and it is difficult to burn your plants with this type of fertilizer. I give my plants kelp extract even after fruit is harvested because my trees need to build up strength for vegging and flowering next season.
Another thing I do to my fruit trees is to heavily thin my fruit. I typically thin by removing about 1/3 of all the smaller fruit when they are about pea to marble size(in general). Of course the size of the fruit when you remove them depends on what type of fruit it is but generally speaking, pea to marble size covers much of what we grow. Another way to look at it is to remove 1/3 of the fruit 2-3 weeks after fruit set. This is the first thinning.
Depending on the type of fruit, I do a second thinning several weeks or a month later to remove another 1/3 of the smaller, malformed or damaged fruit. For fruit like Longan and Loquat that fruit in large panicles, it's easier to just clip off the terminal 1/3 to 2/3 of the fruit cluster when pea sized. Most of this information is just regurgitation of information I read online or saw on a YouTube video.
When flowering and when fruit are enlarging, I like to give my trees organic 0-10-10. The Potassium in this type of fertilizer is supposed to increase the sweetness of the fruit and I really feel it helps greatly from my experience. About every 3 months or so, I also like to give my plants some ground up rock dust like Azomite which you can order online. This is supposed to help replenish the minerals that were used up by the plants. There are some informative videos about this on YouTube.
If you are going for extra large "showpiece" fruit to give away to your friends and relatives, make sure you water your trees according to what is recommended for that type of fruit. Also know your soil and your rootstock so that you don't kill your tree by overwatering. Having stated this, I have found that( very obviously) the more water you give, the larger the fruit. BUT, be careful of fruit splitting.
In order to avoid fruit splitting, I try to establish my trees as best as I can. By this I mean that the first couple weeks I plant a tree, I water my trees almost daily but don't rely on what you read online! Everybody's yard, soil and microclimate are different so it is difficult to generalize. You Must get your hands dirty and keep track for yourself. If in question of wether or not to water, dig down into the soil or feel the drainage holes of your pot and see for yourself. When establishing trees it's important to gradually decrease the number of waterings so that your trees roots will expand deeper and deeper into the ground in search of water. With these deep roots, I personally feel that you will have less issues with fruit splitting. Also try to keep your watering schedule very regular and do not water in midday during a heat wave unless to save your trees life. I'm just totally guessing but I feel that the heat causes increased metabolic activity in the trees and the trees are capable of sucking up so much water during a heat wave that it causes fruit to split. It may be better to wait until late evening or at night and don't overwater in these conditions. Having deep roots will also help in these heat wave conditions because the water supply to your tree is more stable.