Readers of this blog may recall that we have a block of Kanza trees at the Pecan Experiment Field. In 2012, I drew up a tree
thinning plan to remove a portion of the trees in this orchard to allow the remaining trees more room to grow. We took a progressive approach to thinning the orchard. We removed trees gradually, several each year, in areas where trees were beginning to crowd.
This Fall, when I walked out to the Kanza orchard to check on tree spacing, I noticed that most areas that have not been thinned yet had limbs that were beginning to touch (photo at right). Following the 2016 harvest season we will be taking out more trees, this time more trees than we had in previous years.
I also checked areas in the Kanza block that had been thinned in previous years. Here I found the trees to be well spaced with plenty of light penetrating all portions of the canopy (photo at left). Eventually the entire block of Kanza trees will be thinned to this spacing (43 feet by 43 feet).
