Topic: Baby Apples

[Jesse]

Hi all, heres a picture of a baby apple on my apple tree.



Trouble is there's only a few this year compared to loads last year. I have two Discovery apple trees (both only bearing a few this year) and one Crab Apple tree (not a dickie bird on that) [Hey, what happened to the word D*ckie-bird?]. My two pear trees (Concorde and Conference) are also very sparce with fruit. Is anyone else having a bad year or is it just me?

My other question, the Crab Apple tree is very old and last year (while my other apple and pear trees were full of fruit) and again this year there is no fruit at all. Do apple trees get to an age where they don't produce fruit anymore? Or is the old lady just having a rest?  :-\ :-\

[Moggle]

I know nothing about growing fruit, but I think I read recently in a news story that apples have a couple of good years, then they can have a bad year.

Do any of our experts here know anything about the truth or otherwise of this?

[The gardener]

I have heard of this Moggle, but I think in reality, time of pruning and the weather conditions when they are in flower will be the more likely cause.

[cleo]

My apples are fine- but the pears trees :'(-zilch this year.

Stephan

[Jesse]

I think one of my apple trees is confused, it thinks it's spring time all over again as it has sprouted out two blossoms now!

[jo2]

As it was so hot last summer a lot of plants are showing the stress of it this year by either not flowering or fruiting and getting their energy back.
Chances are it will fruit fine next year.
We used to have an enormous apple tree in the garden which definatly had good years and not so good years - I think them having a rest every now and then is pretty normal.

[tim]

No expert, but is the crab a pollinator for the Discovery? If not, you can expect variations. Which you can on some apples anyway.

Our Discovery - pollinator for our Sunsets, has been a great disappointment.

Nice photo! = Tim

[Jesse]

Tim, I think you may have the answer there! I didn't think about the pollination bit, I need to get my fruit tree book out but if memory serves I think we bought the Discovery trees because the crab apple (which was already here) would be the ideal pollinator for them. It would make sense then that if the Crab Apple is having a rest (hardly no blossoms on it this year) then it wouldn't have served very well as a polinator for the Discovery and hence very few apples. But then I have 2 Discovery trees, would they not pollinate each other?

We did have heavy rain this year when the blossoms were on the Discovery and Pears, I wonder if the rain might have got in the way or destroyed the blossoms before the bees were able to pollinate them.

[tim]

Good point - don't know!

When we bought 4 Sunset, Ken Muir said we ought to have Discovery as well. = Tim

[Tenuse]

If your trees are still fairly young, and you let them crop too heavily in their first few years, they may then become prone to "biennial bearing", i.e. they will fruit like crazy one year, then be so knackered that they miss a year of fruiting to get enough energy back.

I have just gone round my 2/3 year old trees and thinned off a lot of fruit even though it is all growing very nicely, it was torture throwing away potential apples! but I don't want to over-stress the trees. So I have left one fruit per cluster, and on young branches where there are more than one cluster if the branch is still thin I have taken off most of the fruits so that the branch won't snap when the apples get big...

I'll let you know how this has worked in the autumn!

Ten x