WE have an apple tree in our yard that used to produce apples. How come it has stopped?
Question:The apple tree was here when we moved in. It produces Crab apples. We cut it back last year hoping that would help, but it looks like we're going to get no apples again this year. It blossoms, but then the buds of the apples die and fall off the tree. 3 years ago we had about 150 apples, last year we had 3...what are we doing wrong?
Answers:
It sounds like you may have pruned off all of the fruit "spurs" when you reduced its size last year. Apple trees only fruit on 2nd year wood or older, meaning that the first year the fruit buds produce leaves and the second year it will produce a flower and "if" pollinated, will produce an apple. When you prune back heavily such as I think you may have done, it will take a couple of years before you get anymore fruit on the tree. When pruning, you need to leave the fine "twiggy" branches, these are the limbs which bare the fruit spurs that form into apples in the summer. The swollen buds are the fruiting bodies of the tree, and are visible if you look on the fine twigs. Also, be careful when picking fruit, if you remove the apple carefully and leave the spur behind, it will continue to produce fruit on this same spur for a number of years. When pruning any fruit tree you should only remove about 2/3 of the years growth. Leave behind at least two or three buds on each fine branch. Many fruit trees when they have a heavy crop one year, will produce very little or not at all the next. This is caused by the tree using all of its energy reserves to produce this massive production. When it restores its energy usually the third year, it will again produce a good crop. Needless to say, your crop for this year is virtually lost. Hope this answers your question..
http://www.rickerhill.com/pruning.htm...
PS... If the tree is flowering in the spring, and it happens to rain somewhat heavily, you will lose the blossoms and production will be nil for the year..
...Billy Ray
Maybe you need to prune the limbs
Just add some manure or some other kind of fertilizers underneath the tree.
Trust me.
It helps.
I had the same thing happen to me a couple of years ago with my cucumber tree...
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