Topic: Apple blossom

[Beersmith]

I have a set of apple trees in an orchard area on one of my plots.  Last year was tough as the prolonged dry spells and the period of 40 degrees C temperatures was damaging and the yield was well down on normal.  But the trees survived and didn't seem to have suffered any permanent damage. Now they are all covered in blossom.

That is all except one. The Scrumptious, Red Falstaff, Sunset, Queen Cox, Bramley and James Grieve are all fully in flower or are about to burst.  The final tree is a Fiesta and has loads of fruit spurs but not a single flower. The buds are opening but nothing but leaf. I strongly suspect that the stress last year has triggered a biennial effect.  What seems astonishing is the suddenness - there was never any evidence previously - and absolutely total switch off.

The trees are a mix of spur bearing and tip bearing, and are mature enough to need only minimal pruning and all experienced the same weather conditions last year.  I'm aware that apple trees can develop a biennial tendency but I've never encountered anything so extreme or sudden.

Has anyone else experienced anything similar, or know anything specific about this variety.

I'll be researching corrective strategies next but anyone have any thoughts or comments?

[JanG]

I can’t add anything conclusive but I do have a Fiesta tree which one year, when it was relatively young, bore fruit so heavily that a large branch broke off and left the tree a very odd shape. Probably initial bad formative pruning on my part.
The crop does seem quite variable but nothing quite as regular as biennial bearing. I’ll be watching it this year in the light of what you’ve observed.

[ACE]

I have was led to believe that when fruit trees get stressed they really blossom well the next time so there is plenty of seed to carry on if it dies.

[Beersmith]

I have was led to believe that when fruit trees get stressed they really blossom well the next time so there is plenty of seed to carry on if it dies.

Maybe I should be worrying more about all the other trees because they are literally smothered in blossom. So that is some evidence to support your suggestion, as last season was very very hot at times and also very dry. Perhaps they have reacted to that stress.

To be fair the tree that I'm talking about looks very healthy but it is lacking even a single flower.  Yet this is a tree with numerous fruiting spurs and ordinarily sets plenty of apples so I normally have to thin a good proportion.  The fruiting spurs are sprouting lots of tender green leaf but nothing else. 

I've encountered biennial fruiting before.  Years ago I had a Newton Wonder that was noticeably biennial, but even in bad years it had some blossom. I've never seen a tree that usually crops reliably suddenly have a complete absence of blossom.  I'm hopeful things will go back to normal next season but would love to understand the cause not least to make sure it doesn't happen again to the other trees.

[tricia]

Five years ago my Jonagold decided to go biennial, a year with no blossom whatsoever followed by a huge harvest the next year and so on. I've followed various advice to no avail. Right now the tree is in full blossom and will need to be massively thinned out once I've seen how well fruit has set. In the years when I get fruit I freeze as much as I have space for and luckily it stores well in the fridge too so I usually have enough to last 18 months or so.

Tricia 

[JanG]

I have a Kidds Orange Red which had one year off but has had fruit in the years since, so perhaps there’s hope, Beersmith, that it might not be establishing an irrevocable pattern.

[Vinlander]

Modern varieties tend to over-produce flowers and fruit (to excess in my opinion - I think any tree can only produce so much flavour, so greater yields just mean less flavour per fruit).

So Fiesta (from the 70's) needs explaining - is it on a different rootstock from the rest? possibly a less-dwarfing stock (with a bigger root system) that is able to ignore the stress that (as Ace says) is what normally triggers extra flowering.

Cheers.

PS. Yields are paramount in commerce - the orchards would much rather thin down to the yield they need (and to hell with the flavour) - there's no financial benefit to fewer fruit with a better flavour - none of the marketers would even notice if one supplier produced tastier 'Fiestas' - and they certainly wouldn't pay for it.

[Beersmith]

Many thanks for the thoughtful comments.  The trees are all on m9 rootstock except the queen Cox that is on M27 and is a lovely miniature tree.  They are spaced roughly 10 feet apart,  and the area is grassed apart from a circle around each about 5 feet in diameter that gets mulch and horse muck feed from time to time.

It's all rather perplexing.

[JanG]

I’m clueless about causes but have got round to inspecting my trees. To my interest, Fiesta has just one very small cluster of flowers and the rest of the tree is without flowers. Whatever affected your Fiesta, Beersmith, might just have had a similar effect on my tree?

[Beersmith]

I’m clueless about causes but have got round to inspecting my trees. To my interest, Fiesta has just one very small cluster of flowers and the rest of the tree is without flowers. Whatever affected your Fiesta, Beersmith, might just have had a similar effect on my tree?

I'm in the east Midlands and my trees are in a sunny spot, and very much in the area of last year's record temperatures. So one possibility is that the variety is sensitive to heat. What part of the country are you based? If in a cooler area that avoided the 40 degrees C records we might need to think again but sensitivity to heat is one hypothesis.

The effects of temperature on apples is an important research area.  I went to Brogdale a few years back. They have an experimental area where average temperatures are raised by just one or two degrees on average.  The key concern was that apple crops might be reduced if winters were too mild.  A slightly different issue but clearly apples are not completely immune to temperatures.

Thanks for your interest.

[Beersmith]

A small snap of the blossom that is typical on the other trees plus a couple of fruit spurs on the Fiesta.

[JanG]

I’m clueless about causes but have got round to inspecting my trees. To my interest, Fiesta has just one very small cluster of flowers and the rest of the tree is without flowers. Whatever affected your Fiesta, Beersmith, might just have had a similar effect on my tree?

I'm in the east Midlands and my trees are in a sunny spot, and very much in the area of last year's record temperatures. So one possibility is that the variety is sensitive to heat. What part of the country are you based? If in a cooler area that avoided the 40 degrees C records we might need to think again but sensitivity to heat is one hypothesis.

The effects of temperature on apples is an important research area.  I went to Brogdale a few years back. They have an experimental area where average temperatures are raised by just one or two degrees on average.  The key concern was that apple crops might be reduced if winters were too mild.  A slightly different issue but clearly apples are not completely immune to temperatures.

Thanks for your interest.

Very interesting. I’m east of you and perhaps a little north, but the very highest temperatures (41.5?) were recorded just about five miles away. It’s looking like it could very well be a key factor.

I have a Jonagold which looks much more sparse in blossom than usual. Perhaps another variety sensitive to heat. Most others look fairly normal but it will be easier to do a final appraisal in a week or so.

Thanks for that insight.

[Digeroo]

All my apple trees are well covered in blossom too.  Very pretty