Viewing post #3030798 by TheMadPlanter

SedonaDebbie said: Hi MadPlanter,
Welcome to gardening. As you are discovering, there are often no clear answers to a gardening question. It can be pretty frustrating. But the truth is what works well for one person in one area often won't work so well in another area.

I also don't have a definitive answer for you, just some anecdotal observations. And keep in mind I live in screaming hot Arizona which is very different from Virginia.
However... when I planted my apple trees 2 years ago all my research indicated was that the apples themselves must have direct sunlight in order to ripen. That I should prune my trees to thin out a whole lot of branches and leaves to allow the sunlight to penetrate to the fruit. So I did that. One tree is in full sun and one is in part shade/part sun all day long. The tree in part shade did very well. I got a nice little crop of Gala apples this year. But all the Fuji apples in full sun got sunburned on the south sides of the fruit. So the advice they gave me didn't work so well for me here. I would imagine that 6 hours of sun would be fine especially because the trees produce a whole lot more fruit then they are capable of growing to full size and you have to thin most of them out when they are tiny.

My cherry trees are only 3 years old and haven't started producing yet.

I have 3 kinds of strawberries in 3 different beds. They all wilted very quickly on hot days and did much better when I gave them all some shade. Then they produced a lot more. They don't seem to need so much sun.

Sorry I couldn't be more help.
Debbie

Debbie:

Thanks for contributing. I think you are right—we probably will never know for sure what we could have done to get the optimal yield for our efforts.

Your experience was very helpful.