Apple Tree - dormant?

ds1980

One of our apple trees is bearing fruit this year but didn't the previous. I have heard that they can become biennial plants if neglected. Is this true and what should i do to make sure it crops again next year! We look like having a bumper crop!!

conradmum

The trick to making fruit trees revert to annual bearing is to relieve it of the stress of bearing a huge crop in its 'on' year. In other words, thin this year's crop down drastically before the fruit starts to swell in July. Take off at least half the fruit that's left after the June drop.

ds1980

greta my old dear said to do that anyway because the apple rot that are in contact with each other.........what a ball ache though its 30 feet high!!!! Cant wait for the weekend....thought i had enough jobs to do!

conradmum

ds1980 wrote: »

greta my old dear said to do that anyway because the apple rot that are in contact with each other.........what a ball ache though its 30 feet high!!!! Cant wait for the weekend....thought i had enough jobs to do!

Wow, that's a huge apple tree! I'd leave it another couple of weeks. Fruit trees naturally shed some of their crop this month anyway. Wouldn't want your testicles to ache too much.

Mojisola

As conradmum's says - wait for the June drop to happen naturally and then thin the fruit out further if you think it needs it and you can get to them. It's usually better to have a smaller number of decent sized apples rather than loads of small ones.

Some varieties of apple tend to biennial fruiting so you may have one of those in which case you just have to live with it and enjoy the good years, especially as it's so big that thinning is going to be a problem.