Thinning your fruit is an important way to reduce pests and disease on your trees. Thinning also helps produce higher quality and larger, tastier fruit. To thin your apples, simple use clippers or sharp scissors to cut the fruit off. Avoid pulling the fruit off because you might damage other fruit and end up taking off more than you intended. Apples usually form in clusters of six or more so I usually thin clusters down to 2-4 fruit. You want clusters to be thinned so the fruit is not rubbing up against one another. Although thinning is very important, remember that once you have cut fruit off you can not get it back, so especially on your first attempts you may want to err on the safe side. You can always come back for a second round of thinning as the fruit continues to develop.
