Community Thinning Pilot Project

Ensuring Great Harvests - by cutting off tons of fruit

It might sound counterintuitive, but by removing sometimes 50-80% of the fruit a tree sets, we can increase the quality of the fruit, reduce pest and disease pressure, AND help avoid the tree putting all it’s production into this year and skipping out on producing NEXT year.

For lots of reasons (knowledge, time, tree height, lack of interest), most tree owners don’t thin their fruit, which means that 50% of many of our harvests end up as “B” fruit that can’t be donated or composted.

One way that we are looking to boost fruit production and donation this year is piloting a community thinning project where we train groups of volunteers to thin trees where homeowners are planning to donate some or all of their fruit.

To make this a roaring success we need help!

Are you able to:

• Learn a repetitive task and teach it to others?

• Show up on time

• Distribute and collect small tools

Consider being a thinning lead! More leads = more locations we can reach!

Are you interested in helping, but not leading? We need loads of help, so please sign up!

To Recap:

Goals:

• Decrease B fruit and increase donatable harvest poundage through some early season preparation

• Increase resilience of the trees - fewer broken limbs from heavy fruit, lower pest/disease pressure, more consistent harvests

• Engage community in tree care projects - a way into learning and caring

How to Help:

Intersested in leading? Email owen@portlandfruit.org

Interested in just signing up? Check out the dates/times/locations here

Want to get your trees on the waitlist? Fill out this form!