How are your apple trees doing in this heat and drought?

[Pqrl0ur]

Mine are awful to the extent I’m wondering about replacing them with crabapples. Both are round 5 years old. They’ve always been challenging. Wondering if my garden just isn’t suited to apples. We’re on clay.

My crabapple dislikes being dry and is on clay. I dug a new flower bed around it this year which I've been watering and for once it hasn't dropped all it's leaves yet and even has some fruits. The apple tree is doing much better!

Ours has always had little fruit, this year it did much better and then…the dry and heat has caused it to drop almost all the fruit. I have watered it (using buckets) to try and give it a chance but gave up on the idea of a crop of apples.

My Bramley tree which I have had about 20 years and never gives much has one large apple on it and the other newish eating apple tree has quite a few small apples, but they aren’t getting any bigger ☹️

My apples got sunburn - the burned ones were removed and the others are staying small.
The soil is like rock. Am all about mulch layers next year.

No apples for us this year. Normally we have loads

Apple trees take several years to generally establish themselves
Mine are 10 years old and have only really been fruiting well in the last five

I try and give each one of them a full watering can every day

i’ve got quite a good crop this year so far

Mostly terrible. They’ve been jettisoning their unripe fruit for weeks now. Only one of them is ok - a Cox’s Orange Pippin my son grew from a pip. It’s absolutely covered in fruit.

I'm really just following for interest. We have an apple tree that DS grew from an apple pip.
It was in a pot for years, never blossomed. We put it in the ground a few years ago, and it has blossomed for the last 3 years. Year 1 we had a few marble sized apples. Last year lots of v small apples. This year I read somewhere that you should prune all the little apples off, just leaving one per cluster. I have done that this year, they are bigger, but maybe ping pong ball size.
Its more sentimental that anything but should I do anything else?

My Bramley was doing great up until this week but it's started dropping its apples so not going to get much of a crop. Tree still looks perky, I'm not watering it but it's pretty well established. I've got a Cox which is only 2 years old. It's only got 3 apples on it and they've got insect holes. I'm watering this one in hopes of better things next year.

When you grow from seed, you never know what you're going to get, each one is different. So your tree will always have small apples.
Bramleys come from a single seedling found growing in a hedge (its full name is Bramley's Seedling)

One is okay-ish, although not nearly as abundant as last year. The other has only 3 apples on it!

Did you know that few apple trees are self-fertile and need, with a few exceptions, one of the same class nearby for cross pollination?
That may explain your lack of apples.
I’m on greensand meaning very dry, and have a whole orchard of cross pollinators but apples have been dropping and those left half the size.
Oh well, maybe next year…

Mine has a good covering but they are so small, about a third of their normal size.

My soil is rubbish chalk, but my apple tree, and those of my neighbours have been absolutely fine and I can see lots of decent sized apples, I’ve barely watered it as well. It is very established though. I’m wondering in this extreme weather if they thrive better on chalk rather than clay?

Clay soil and no rain for months. No fruit on any of our trees. We have an orchard with about 15 trees but it’s too far away to water. Real shame

Ours are falling - by the time they drop, the birds have usually had a nibble.
Some are ripe and others not.
its a very old tree ☹️

Mine has gone mad again. Not as mad as last year where I had around 30 bag-for-lifes full of apples (after throwing loads that came down before harvesting) but I’d say it’ll probably produce around 20 bags full, and that is after a huge prune last winter.

I have 2 coxes. Last year we had over 100 apples per tree. Not even a blossom this year!

Cookers are just falling off unripe. Terrified they're going to brain the chickens who like to furtle underneath the tree. Cox are tiny and not expecting anything.
Golden delicious are surviving but are near the pond and have a lot of shade whereas the others are in full sun.

After a mast year last year it's very much famine this one.

Lots of apples on the Russett - the leaves have shrivelled. The Cox has less apples than last year. I have started to give them a good water every couple of days early in the morning to see if that helps. Haven't noticed any apples falling yet.

Hoping that apple trees are more hardy with the drought...

I'm having a dreadful year with all our fruit trees. First all the pears went black at the bottom and dropped off, I think we have one left. Now the plums all seem to have maggots in them (plum moth?) and a lot of the apples have got typical codling moth holes. Apparently they love the hot, dry weather and breed twice a year instead of once. We don't normally have a problem with them and use pheromone traps which appear to have done bugger all this year.

It's soul-destroying really and I do wonder why I bother. I hope it doesn't put up the price of apples this year.

I think it will. I have two cherry trees and usually give most to a lady that makes jam and sells for the Parkinson’s charity. It was really hot, so I planned to leave it until the evening the day after, and lost the lot. Same with two big bushes of blackcurrants. I’m a redhead so just cannot stand out in full sun.
That said, we picked sone Mirabelle plums yesterday - nectar!

Just to add that last year was a mast year where most fruit trees gave an exceptional amount out and will naturally produce less this year to build up their strength again. My trees are old established standards so I do have fruit on some of them even though I haven't watered them but about half of the trees didn't even blossom as they overdid themselves last year, unusual because I have some reliable varieties that have never not fruited. Discovery, Scrumptious, Sunset and the crab apples are all doing well though. I'm on heavy clay too although I do mulch them with bark chips.

All the apples are dropping I’m worried they’re going to knock one of the kids on the head! Never known them to drop like this!

No idea haven’t got any just wanted to boast about my fig tree which is producing fifteen a day at the moment.