How to Thin Pomegranate Fruit
Pomegranate is a healthy and flavorful fruit that can be eaten raw in salads or with yogurt. Pomegranates can be juiced, cooked into jam or made into sorbet. If you love pomegranates, you've likely considered growing them at home. You can purchase pomegranate trees and grow them outdoors if you live in U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Hardiness Zones 7 to 10. Typically, trees take about three years to bear fruit. Once your pomegranate tree begins to produce fruit, you'll want to thin the fruit as it develops to increase fruit size and prevent tree limbs from snapping under weight. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
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Wait until developing pomegranates are the size of golf balls. It's best to allow the pomegranate some time to develop so you can identify fruits that are of lesser quality when you perform your thinning.
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Inspect the branches of your pomegranate tree to find clusters of fruit. Horticulturists at the University of Tennessee recommend leaving a distance of 6 to 8 inches between fruits on the same branch so you'll also want to note fruits that are growing too close together.
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Trim away fruits that are growing too close together using either your pruning tools or your fingers. The fruits are small enough that they should pull right off the branch with little resistance. Stabilize the branch with one hand while you pull with the other. Place fruits into a compost bin or garbage bag.
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Reduce the number of fruits on fruit clusters to one fruit. Your fruit will taste and look better if you thin fruit clusters. Thinning the fruit also improves air circulation through the pomegranate tree, which cuts down on disease. Older trees, young trees and weak trees need to be thinned with exact attention, since thinning allows the tree to devote more energy to its own growth and vigor. If your pomegranate tree is healthy and mature, you can be more lenient when thinning.
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Discard all pomegranates that you've thinned. Leaving them near the tree attracts pests and diseases.
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Tips & Warnings
You can also use the jarring method to thin your pomegranate tree. Simply hit the limbs of the tree with a baseball bat or other hard object. This works well for limbs that are too high up to reach, but you have significantly less control over which fruits fall.
