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.