Normal for first year?

[dasantillo]

We planted 3 dwarf apple trees (Laxton Superb, James Grieves and Bramley) in autumn last year. This year, we had a no apples on the Bramley, a few apples from the James Grieves and last night we picked and froze 2lb (peeled and cored weight) of Laxton Superb. We had to support every branch on that tree as there were over 80 apples on the tiny tree. The apples were so sweet too!

Is that normal for the first year as I always thought it took a couple of years for the apples to get going?

[scared55]

Lucky you. We planted in spring 2 apples, 2 pears, apricot, nectarine, peach, mirabelle, plum and cherry and got nowt!

KK

[SarzWix]

It's been a good year for apples
However I did find the following information from a Google search;


Jeff Clayton – Brogdale Farm Supervisor
My Favourite Apple
'Laxton’s Superb'

My favourite apple has to be 'Laxton's Superb'. It is a very popular and well known late dessert apple that stores very well – it will usually keep well into the New Year. The fruits have white, very juicy, sweet flesh with a very pleasant flavour similar to Cox’s Orange Pippin. The one downside to this variety though is the fact that it tends to be a ‘biennial bearer’ and therefore generally only produces a good crop every other year.
Laxton’s Superb was originally raised in 1897 by Laxton Brothers Ltd., of Bedford from a cross made between Wyken Pippin X Cox’s Orange Pippin. It received an Award of Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society in 1919 and a First Class Certificate in 1921. It was introduced in 1922 and is still grown commercially today, and of course, we have two trees growing in the National Apple Collection at Brogdale.
________________________________________________________________
To try and get round the 'good crop every 2 years' thing, when the tree does have a big crop forming, you can remove around half of the blossom. Only allowing half of the crop to grow can sometimes mean you'll get a crop every year after that.
See following info;


BLOSSOM THINNING AND BIENNIAL BEARING
You will find that there are certain varieties of apple, such as 'Laxton's Superb', that have a tendency to produce some very heavy crops in alternate years, with little or no crop in intervening years. This is known as biennial bearing. I have found that the best way to correct this is by thinning out the blossom. This involves the removal of about nine out of every ten blossom clusters by pinching them out. However, ensure that you leave the rosette of leaves surrounding each bundel of blossom intact. The result of this is that instead of producing a very heavy crop, the tree will produce a rather more moderate crop, but the energy saved will be put into developing fruit buds for the following year. Otherwise the next year, the tree would have been fruitless. If you have a very large tree however, it would be nigh on impossible to do this for the whole tree. I would therefore advise that for large trees, you do this for about one in three of the branches. This should again correct the problem. If you have an established tree that has always fruited annually, and then suddenly starts fruiting biennially, this is probably due the loss of blossom by frost. This will lead to a smaller crop in one year, but the next year, the tree will overcrop itself. The tree may then not have enough resources to build up fruiting buds for the third year, and so the biennial cropping tendency is set in motion. If you get a large outbreak of deisease or colonisation by bugs in one year, this could also cause the same effect.

FRUIT THINNING
If a heavy fruit crop has set, thinning is essential. This will result in larger apples of a higher quality and flavour. Thinning out heavy crops of fruit will also help to prevent branches from breaking under the weight. If your apple tree is young, allowing it to overcrop itself will severely drain its resources and this will then slow down the growth of new buds. It is possible to thin out the young fruitless as they form, however, I have found that the best time to do it is after the 'June Drop', which is when the tree will naturally shed imperfect and infertile fruits. To thin out your fruits, you should use secateurs to remove the centre fruit from each bunch. This is often called the 'king' fruit and may regularly be of an abnormal shape. Whilst doing this, you should also cut out any fruits that are damaged. I then go back during mid-summer, and thin the resulting bunches to only one fruit per cluster. Making sure that the fruit that is left is the biggest fruit and also of a high quality. Fruit of dessert cultivars should be spaced 10-15cm apart, and that of culinary cultivars 15-22cm apart. The distances that you should leave between your fruit will vary depending on the variety and the size of fruit that you require.

[dasantillo]

Thanks for the info - looks like we won't get many next year then. The June drop just didn't happen for that tree - it held onto all its apples. I thinned them out a little bit. It'll be interesting to see what happens next year...

[SarzWix]

Thanks for the info - looks like we won't get many next year then. The June drop just didn't happen for that tree - it held onto all its apples. I thinned them out a little bit. It'll be interesting to see what happens next year...

The other 2 trees should be in their stride by then though, so hopefully you won't be completely apple-less?! One of our trees has got itself into this bi-ennial thing too - next year is it's heavy crop year so I'll be out there thinning away to see if I can cure it!