Thinning SpiceZee

[lrome04]

Last spring I planted a bareroot spicezee. This year it seems like almost every flower was setting a fruit! What would be a healthy amount of fruit to keep on the tree? I have easily removed over 100 small fruitlets. I left about 30 quarter-sized fruits on the tree. Is that still too many for such a young tree? My gut tells me yes but I still feel bad about all the ones I already removed lol I tried to only keep fruit on thicker wood closer to the main trunk

[lrome04]

Here is the tree...



Probably about a third of what I have removed so far..

[SoCalGardenNut]

I remove mine daily. According to Gary from Laguna Hills nursery, one per branch, so that’s my guide. My tree is not as big as yours yet, last year I did get 2 nice fruit from my tree.

[lrome04]

I remove mine daily. According to Gary from Laguna Hills nursery, one per branch, so that’s my guide. My tree is not as big as yours yet, last year I did get 2 nice fruit from my tree.

I am noticing that there isn't much fruit set on the bottom third of the tree. Is that pretty common? Should I be clearing the bottom section of the tree to encourage more upper growth?

[SoCalGardenNut]

Not sure, this is my second year of growing this variety. But every day if I don’t see the baby fruit growing bigger, I just remove them.