I thought chill hours have something to do with flowers as well? Low chill hours (well say, apples) means less buds=less fruit as far as I remember reading.

I guess one could assume how much time the buds had to go domant would be important as well. Generally speaking plants do better with a slow cool down, rather than *snap*, a seemingly instant one.

There have been peach studies done at Clemson that suggest that early thinning will result in larger fruit, but not necessarily more fruit buds the following year, as many people believe. I too have experienced more flowers on the 30 odd trees that I have, than last year, but I attributed this to an application of triple super phosphate in August and a March application of calcium nitrate. I don't see how late season flowering would improve next years crop, unless you're in a late season frost area, and the late season flowering could you get you past any late season frost.

As I see it the tree favors ripening the fruit over producing the buds for next years flowers. Leaving more fruit than the tree can support leads to poor flowing next year. If the conditions are favorable and the season is long, both the fruit and the buds will receive enough energy to avoid the alternate bearing, even if the thinning was not adequate. Al