Yield and Fruit Quality of Loquat Trees as a Result of Flower Bud Thinning

The size and appearance of loquats are crucial for their acceptance in the consumer market. The loquat tree has intense fruiting, which suggests thinning flower buds in order to improve the quality of loquat fruit production. This study was performed in the Paraíba Valley region of the state of São Paulo, in the subtropical region of southeastern Brazil to assess intensities of flower thinning at full bloom on the yield and fruit quality of loquat trees. The study was carried out over two consecutive harvest seasons. Trees of the cultivar ‘Precoce de Itaquera’ were used in a randomized block design with five intensities of hand thinning of the flower buds (4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 buds per cluster), with seven replicates. For all treatments, the clusters were bagged as soon as they were thinned. After harvesting, the number of fruit sets, cluster and fruit mass, yield, longitudinal and transverse lengths, number and mass of seeds, soluble solids content, titratable acidity, ripeness index, and pH of the fruit pulp were assessed. An overall improvement was achieved by maintaining four flower buds per cluster. This intensity of thinning provides greater fruit setting on the cluster, as well as larger and sweeter fruit. The highest cluster weight and yield were obtained by maintaining 12 flower buds per cluster.