Apple trees - how did yours do this year?

[Sneakyfox]

I have quite a few and they looked promising early in the year but they haven’t produced nearly as much fruit as last year. I think I harvested too late for the early ones and some of the trees are due for a good prune, just wondering how others got on?

Mine have settled into biennial bearing, and I can't remember whether this is meant to be a good year or a bad year. The ones I've picked so far seem to be not particularly good - between 8 and 25 lbs each, and one didn't produce anything. Allinsons Pippin, which is only just ready, looks as if it will have at least 50lbs, Cornish Aromatic looks to be having a good year too (which is good because it keeps till March).

What do you mean by "I think I harvested too late"? Do you mean you don't use windfalls, or do you mean you were getting a lot of rot and bird damage?

I should have said, a good year is over 200lbs, but I think I'll only get about 100lbs this year

I think a lot fell before I got to them (which was still much earlier than last year) and nature had them. I’ve been quite busy so I’ve not given them the attention they deserve. Lots of insect marks on many that I did pick. A good few of mine didn’t bear fruit either (but did last year) and I’m not sure if that is normal (only been here a year).

I suppose I was wondering if the dry, hot spring followed by a lot of rain affected apple production generally or it’s just my poor management of the trees? I know nothing about apples - except how to make cider!

Ours (Bramley) had hardly any fruit at all. I knew it wouldn't because there was hardly any blossom in the spring. Normally it is groaning with them, if you stand under it for more than a minute you are likely to get bonked on the head by tumbling fruit. There was one other year where there were hardly any in the 10 years we have been here. Our neighbour said apples trees have a year off every four or five years, I don't know if that is true.

I have heard that they have a year off. The trees that didn’t do so well for me were the russets, ellinson’s orange and the early red apples such as epicure, sunset. Would it be a good idea to prune all of the trees that didn’t fruit?

Sounds like somethings had them away! I wouldn’t accuse neighbours just yet though...my dog like to run off with apples. Same happened to my pear trees last year, one day they were there...the next day no sign of them. I was convinced someone had picked them, but I think something that lives in the garden just really likes them. I have a mouse that waits until the precise moment the strawberries are ready and stealthily has them away!

Would it be a good idea to prune all of the trees that didn’t fruit? It's a good idea to prune all the trees, get rid of dead branches, keep the structure open, don't let it get too high for picking etc. But if you prune any tree too hard, you'll get a lot of "water shoots" - shoots growing straight upwards that won't fruit next year, so not as much energy left to go into fruiting.

@MereDintofPandiculation thank you, I will give it a go. I think as I don’t know a great deal about them I’m still in the mindset of ‘let’s see what happens with them’ covering my inexperience and nervousness with an excuse. I have a lot of apple trees, so I think I’m going to have to get a plan (and rota) together. It’s been a big learning curve so far!

How many is a lot? Lovely to have russets in the plural - I have just the one, a Brownlees russet.

In my experience there's a broad correlation bewteen flowering time and fruiting time, so that the early fruiters tend to be in the earlier flowering groups. So it may be that you had a cold snap at the critical time, and not much insect activity.

The two other things that can reduce yield:

1. dry summer, so a particularly heavy "June drop"

2. too heavy a crop the previous year. You can correct this by thining a heavy crop. I don't bother, just live with what happens, so I do end up with biennial bearing. At one time they had divided themselves into two out-of-synch groups, so total crop was similar, just different varieties each year. Now they've all got into synch so I have a good year followed by a year of glut.

Ours didn’t have a great year. We make the bulk of our crop into pressed apple juice - last year we had about 200 litres - this year 70 from the same trees.

The apple pressing company we use said that it’s been the same for everyone because of the weather.

Our small apple tree had lots of fruit for the first time. Unfortunately a bad storm broke it in half.

We did unusually well this year, although I'm quite clueless with apples. I might have an idea about disappearing fruit though. The squirrels in these parts can often be seen making off with an apple. Sometimes ridiculously big ones that they can barely see over. Not all squirrels, and not every year. Inscrutable little critters (that's the polite version)

Mine had about three blossoms in the spring, I have what the apple man identified as a James grieve, he also told me that poor pruning (guilty as charged m’lud) would put a tree into biennial flowering. I had to have the tree radically cut back during the summer,which somehow encouraged it to have august blossom. Hoping to get something next year, but if not then it’s still a tree , the birds like it, and so do I.

Mine did ok, but not as well as last year. Does anyone else have problems with snails eating the apples? They take a bite or two out, and then move on to the next apple - so annoying!

Best crop ever this year and starting to wrap them to try and keep some over the winter.

My apple and plum trees did really well this year, they are only very young and gave us enough fruit for several apple crumbles and a plum one but I think it is mainly because the thieving bastards chickens no longer have access to them.

@MereDintofPandiculation yes we did have a very late frost that nearly took out some of my veggies in May and I should have thinned the apples. We made lots of cider last year and we will get some batches done this year - so I probably need to make a decision on what I can realistically manage - looking after them properly and going for best yield or just making use of whatever happens. I have 27 apple trees, 5 pear trees and a plum, they are quite old trees that probably haven’t had much TLC. Husband likes the russets (we have brownlee and rosemary) and the orange pippin.

Does anyone else have problems with snails eating the apples? They take a bite or two out, and then move on to the next apple - so annoying! That doesn't sound like snails/slugs - they tend to come back to the same place eacj night. Are you sure it's not blackbirds?

@Sneakyfox Ooh, that's a lovely lot! How do Brownlees and Rosemary Russets compare? I love the dark pink flowers of the Brownlees, and I like the rather dry flesh, but Rosemary Russet has a lot of recommendations.

What other varieties do you have? My others are Forge (at least that's what I bought it as but I'm doubting the identity), Worcester, king of the Pippins, Herring Pippin, Allisons Pippin, Ashmead Kernel and Cornish Aromatic.

Do you have any cider apples?

We had a bumper crop after a really poor one last year. We had to give away hundreds from the Bramley tree because we don't have a big enough appetite to want to store that many.

We moved house in November, and so had no idea what any of the trees were in the garden, in spring I was pleased with a variety of lovely blossom trees. Thought nothing more of it and didn't spend much time in the back end of the garden (as I was heavily pregnant) then in august I was wandering around with the baby and was very surprised to find 2 apple trees (no idea what type but the apples are delicious) and a pear tree absolutely brimming with fruit. Hundreds of apples and pears on each.
I collected a few at the time, then forgot about it, when back recently and took a load more but lots had insect or bird bites or had fell to the ground and rotted.

Not sure if I should do anything to the trees or when the best time to pick the fruit is next year? Any ideas? X

Not sure if I should do anything to the trees or when the best time to pick the fruit is next year? Any ideas? For apples it can be any time from August to first frost depending on variety. They're ready to pick w lifting the fruit causes it to detach easily. Some of the late pickers finish their ripening in store and are for eating between December and March

@MereDintofPandiculation to be honest I wouldn’t be able to give you a good comparison...off the top of my head I can’t even picture the rosemary russets. Looking at my plan of the garden though I seem to remember they are sweeter And juicier than the brownlees and redder - my kids prefer them but that might be because they look a little nicer, my brownlees have a very orange shade to them. But take all that with a pinch of salt as I am just going off my notes and plan.

We also have Sunset, Sturmer Pippin, Ellinson’s Orange, James Grieve, Epicure, Discovery, Orange Pippin, Laxton’s Superb, Ribston’s Pippin, Charles Ross, Lord Lambourne, and a few I can’t identify (don’t have tags). Quite a few of the trees have had a few different apple varieties grafted on them, so identifying isn’t easy...and don’t know enough. Again, we just use all the varieties for Cider and apple juice. I would love to get to a point where I can make better cider/apple juice by picking the right combination of varieties. We did try using a percentage of pears last year to make the cider a little sweeter...my husband liked the batch, whereas I preferred the sharp taste.

Beauty of Bath and Katy too.

MereDint - definitely snails, or it could be blackbirds too. It's an espaliered tree so next to a wall which the snails climb. This year I started transporting the snails to the front garden from the tree and that seemed to help.