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Apple problem
capt.slog
Posts: 1
in Fruit & veg
Hi.
We have a 'family' apple tree in the garden. I can't recall the varieties on this, there used to be 2 eating apples and a cooking apple on a dwarf(?) rootstock. When my son was around 10 years old, he 'pruned' the tree, cutting one of the eating apples out completely. Ah well.
The tree is obviously not thriving on the neglect I lavish it with, but it has produced nice crops of apples in previous years. Good to eat, and good for making pies with respectively.
Until this year.
This year there are large clusters of very tiny fruits, and sometimes accompanied with curled and withered looking leaves in the same place. I've looked for apple diseases which might match what I'm seeing, but no luck. To me, it looks like the same sort of attack which causes oaks to produce galls.
Some of the fruits are around the size of grapes (second pic shows my hand in the frame). Thinking we should maybe thin them out, we (Mrs Slog and I) set about trying to remove some fruits from the clusters. On doing this we found that the apples had ripened at this size and falling off into our hands. I tried one, nice and sweet, but fairly useless.
Any clues or anyone else getting the same?
We have a 'family' apple tree in the garden. I can't recall the varieties on this, there used to be 2 eating apples and a cooking apple on a dwarf(?) rootstock. When my son was around 10 years old, he 'pruned' the tree, cutting one of the eating apples out completely. Ah well.
The tree is obviously not thriving on the neglect I lavish it with, but it has produced nice crops of apples in previous years. Good to eat, and good for making pies with respectively.
Until this year.
This year there are large clusters of very tiny fruits, and sometimes accompanied with curled and withered looking leaves in the same place. I've looked for apple diseases which might match what I'm seeing, but no luck. To me, it looks like the same sort of attack which causes oaks to produce galls.
Some of the fruits are around the size of grapes (second pic shows my hand in the frame). Thinking we should maybe thin them out, we (Mrs Slog and I) set about trying to remove some fruits from the clusters. On doing this we found that the apples had ripened at this size and falling off into our hands. I tried one, nice and sweet, but fairly useless.
Any clues or anyone else getting the same?
0
Posts
However, I can't do anything about the other issues. I'm hoping there will be a decent harvest. If not, then I probably have enough bottled stewed apple to see me through to autumn next year, since last year was a bumper year.
As for the problem, I agree with @pansyface
There's little one can do about the aphids. I refuse to spray my trees anymore.