No Blossoms

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dewilson
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun May 20, 2012 5:15 pm

No Blossoms

Post by dewilson »

I have two apple trees in my back yard, each planted 3 or 4 years ago and purchased from a local nursery. One is a gravenstein and the other a granny smith. Both trees are about 10 feet tall and 6 feet or more in diameter. I have fertilized, pruned and oil sprayed every year and both trees appear very healthy with vigorous growth every year. The gravenstein has never flowered and the granny smith only produces a small amount of blossoms and only 3 apples total. I also have a bartlett pear tree that is producing and is 2 years younger. Any ideas on what may be preventing these apple trees from flowering?
JohnB
Posts: 9
Joined: Sat Nov 05, 2011 8:42 am
Location: Upstate NY USA

Re: No Blossoms

Post by JohnB »

I don't know :D

But I did find a hint on the internet and that was to use a small amount of 20 Mule team Borax on the trees and it said that helps the trees produce blossoms. So I tried it last summer and sure as heck I had a TON of blossoms this spring. Of course a cold snap hit and lost an unhealthy amount of my crop. Glad I don't do this for a living.

Give it a try.
SOME IDIOT
Posts: 34
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2012 1:54 pm

Re: No Blossoms

Post by SOME IDIOT »

Couple questions. Are you pruning them too hard and maybe removing the fruiting wood? As for the gravenstein, Is it on a larger rootstock? (M-111 and Standard size trees usually take longer to begin flowering.) Regardless if you got it 3 years ago, I would be shocked if you didnt start getting flowers next year. As for the Granny Smith, it probably just doesn't have a good pollinator near by. This issue should work itself out when the gravenstein starts flowering, (I would be shocked if it didnt start flowering next year)
dmtaylor
Posts: 58
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 8:12 pm

Re: No Blossoms

Post by dmtaylor »

Depending on where you are weatherwise, a cold snap or three and this goofy weather in general that many people have experienced in March and April might have prevented proper development or killed most of the blossoms. Two of my 3rd year trees did not blossom at all this year, and most of the blossoms on my third tree, a Cortland, failed to develop all the way. I've only got 13 blossoms on the entire tree, where in a good year I can see that I probably should have had more like 50 to 100 blossoms, but a whole bunch of the fruit buds apparently died with the weird weather and now have started to fall off the tree. So perhaps that is part of your problem.
Hugh
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Apr 07, 2012 8:21 pm

Re: No Blossoms

Post by Hugh »

Gut reactions,

Trees are not getting enough sunlight, they need full sun.

Too much nitrogen fertilizer.

Trees are in a lawn and are grown with the grass's culture being the goal, that is, lots of water and fertilizer.

Warm climate with not enough winter chill.
OrangePippin-Richard
Posts: 165
Joined: Sun Nov 21, 2010 12:14 pm
Contact:

Re: No Blossoms

Post by OrangePippin-Richard »

I agree with the other posts, both trees should be showing blossom by now unless freaky weather this spring has prevented them, or unless you have accidentally pruned off the fruit buds. This year's fruit buds (blossom) were formed on the tree last summer. A 3 or 4 year tree won't need much if any pruning so why not leave pruning this year and see what happens next year.
Chuck Rhode
Posts: 52
Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2011 11:25 pm

Re: No Blossoms

Post by Chuck Rhode »

dewilson wrote:Both trees are about 10 feet tall and 6 feet or more in diameter.
Just a thought: These are supposed to be dwarf trees, aren't they? ... because full-sized trees take a number of years to bloom. Yet, yours are plenty large already. Dwarfs, on the other hand, are precocious in terms of blooming young. I wonder whether you may have buried the graft union. It's sort of the worst-case scenario. The scion grows its own roots and becomes a full-sized tree.
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