Apple trees

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We have two apple trees. Don't know what kind, they do produce. One quite nicely, bugs and all and the other heavy but the apples stay very small. How do we care for these trees? Appreciate your answers.

-- Cindy (SE. IN) (atilrthehony@hotmail.com), February 27, 2002

Answers

Buy or borrow a good/simple book on pruning. It will make ALL the difference.

-- Susan in Northern LP Michigan (cobwoman@yahoo.com), February 28, 2002.

I noticed you asked both about apples and peach. Don't cut them down and don't give up on them. It may take a while to recover the trees but you will learn a lot. In a nutshell:

First, get yourself a good book on the care of fruit bearing trees. There are several good ones out there. If you need suggestions I will look up the titles of my books.

As the other person stated, pruning will probably be your first step. Pruning is usually done in the winter. It is also easier to see what needs pruning.

Third, cleanliness is an important factor. Continually clean up fallen leaves and fruit from the ground. This is one of the ways that disease and parasites proliferate. I usually mow away from the tree in an ever widening circle starting at the trunk during the summer and in fall I use a grass catcher to pick up leaves and small fallen fruit.

Fourth, fertilize. I usually just take spring cleaning from the barn stalls and spread it around the ground starting from the base and out to the end of the branch fall. If you are using commercial fertilizer the books will come in handy here.

Another thing I do is spread wood ashes under and around during the winter. It seems to me I read somewhere that this helps control the parasites and disease that spread through the ground.

I also keep a hive a bees for pollination. I have noticed that the fruit seems to be bigger and better since having my bees.

In spring is when the books tell you to spray and hang insect traps. I can't tell you what to spray as I don't yet. This is another place where the books would be helpful.

Another obscure thing I read in a book was that keeping quail help to control the parasitic insects in the apple trees. Haven't done that yet.

One other thing I also read is there are certain plants planted underneath a tree help to protect it from disease and insects. Off hand I don't remember what those plants are. I'll see if I can find it somewhere if you want.

At least the first 6 things is what I have been doing and have noticed a big difference in the quality of the fruit of these old trees.

-- R. (thor610@yahoo.com), February 28, 2002.


Size of the fruit can also depend on how many you have per branch. If you thin them out, they will usually do better.

I agree with the other posters; I wouldn't cut them down. Spend some time reading, and experimenting with them.

-- mary (marylgarcia@aol.com), February 28, 2002.


I got a great book -- 'The Apple Grower -- A Guide for the Organic Orchardist'. It explains pruning, thinning, fertilizing, etc. It has been extremely useful.

We don't have a large insect problem here, as far north as we are, but most of it can be taken care of with red sphere traps and summer oil spraying (which is basically canola oil, I think, along with a sticking agent, that smothers out pests rather than poisoning them).

I made a hash out of my first apple trees before I got this book -- the new ones are pruned correctly, get fertilized with Fruit Trees Alive (from Gardens Alive), have their trunks wrapped in winter against sun scald and mice, and are thriving.

For the tree that makes only small apples, it may be partly what the cultivar is -- we had what was called an 'Indian Apple' that produced lots of small sweet apples that never got big even if you thinned the fruit, but that was a wild apple seedling. If your trees are a named cultivar, they will probably produce the same amount of fruit if you thin them to 2-3 on a cluster when they are the size of a large marble. You will usually get larger fruit that way, although the poundage may be the same, but the proportion of useable fruit (versus cores and peels) is higher that way. Heavy crops of fruit can actually pull down trees or rip limbs off, so thinning the crop in especially heavy years may be mandatory.

If they are older trees that were just allowed to grow however they felt like it and branches grew horizontally with a bad crotch that may produce a split, it is also a good idea to assess the shape and put up prop stakes under the limbs you want to save, and prune out others.

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), March 04, 2002.


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