I would suggest it is a feature of the variety. We have grown that same combination for a few years, with the oldest trees being 8 years old. We do use rest breaking agents, but when we leave out a few trees they tend to do the same thing. We are at 36 N latitude so likely in a similar climate. The picture I have on my profile pic is one of our Royal blocks with a similar leaf structure. We also use seaweed and lo-bi urea, and while we aren’t officially spray free we managed to only have our dormex spray, one bloom fungicide, and one for SWD. FYI we took our the Tioga trees we had spiked as a pollinator with no change in set, it is just such a poor variety that we don’t bother growing it. One fun thing considering our regenerative practices is that after one application last fall of Spectrum, along with the other AEA products, our silica levels have gone way up, to the point that the branches are almost impossible to bend, they actually feel almost like plastic! Kelp can set you up for some funny things. We see a weird double bloom where new branches not only create a new flower in the first year I have actually seen them start growing a fruit, even though it isn’t viable. Since the growing season is so short a little seaweed can go a long way. Also, in our area Benton was nearly impossible to set, and I have never tried Samba or BlackStar.