Pomegranate Irregular in Fruit Production

These pomegranates aren’t quite ready to harvest but you can see their size. If they were thinned, the remaining one would have been even larger.

Q. I hope things are going well for you in Afghanistan. I
have a question regarding our pomegranate trees. Two years ago, we had an
abundance of good sized pomegranates from two trees. These trees are about 25
feet apart. However, last year we only got about six in total from both trees.

            This
year there are an abundance of blooms and many already have a fruit set. It
looks like there will be at least 25 to 30 pomegranates on each tree. Should I
thin some of the fruits after they have set? Is there a reason why one year we
get an abundance of fruit and the next virtually none?

Try to thin pomegranates while the fruits are still small. In this case (next picture) we will leave only the largest one by twisting off the other two smaller ones.

A. You didn’t tell me if last year you had an abundance
of blooms as well as no fruit or if you have few flowers and also few fruit. Of
course if you didn’t have many flowers then you would not have many fruit
either.

            In this
case it sounds like the growth went into shoot and leaf growth rather than
flower production. If plants are in a very juvenile stage they tend to put
their energy into gaining size. As they get older and they mature they will
begin to produce more fruit.

            If you
prune pomegranates so that you remove excessive new growth but keep the older,
larger wood, you will produce fewer fruit but they will be larger. I only
remove pomegranate fruit when they are small if they are directly opposite each
other. If they are at least an inch or two between the fruit, I leave them both
on.

Here is the remaining pomegranate after thinning.

            I will
post some pictures on my blog at Xtremehorticulture of the desert to show you
what I am talking about.