worried about fruit trees - need advice!

[cinnpie]

Hi-
I have 4 apple trees, a pear and an unknown (poss cherry, hasn't budded yet) and after reading a previous post about finding a poss coddling moth on an apple leaf I took a look this evening. I found one leaf had a dozen tiny black beetles, now gone, a few leaves that looked as if some sort of caterpillar had been resident (webbing) and what looked like tiny rust spots with hole on other. None of this is very noticeable, it was only when I took a good look I saw these. Should I be worried about any of this? I bought the trees about a year and a half ago and am really hoping for some sort of fruit this year and if no fruit, at least no infestation.

Thanks in advance,

Cin 8)

[FB.]

I think that you're worrying too much.

With young trees, cropping can be erratic because of too few flowers to attract the bees - and young trees will often drop all of their fruit long before it ripens. Young trees tend to produce lower quality fruits that don't taste as good, dont reach a good size and don't keep very well.
The few fruits that remain on a young tree after low pollination and fruit-drop are usually overwhelmed by pests. Only when the tree is fruiting in larger amounts does it produce enough fruit to be able to tolerate losses to pests.
If I remember right, my plum tree had about six plums in it's first year and the maggots got them all.
It had about 20 plums in it's second year and it dropped them all without warning.
In the third year, it had a few dozen. the maggots got about half of them (which I removed as soon as I saw the maggot hole), but the remaining half of the fruit were clean, good quality fruit.

I try to let nature take it's course and let the natural predators get rid of the pests.
Bats, robins, finches&tits, blackbirds, frogs&toads, parasitic wasps, hoverflies, ladybirds, lacewings, spiders, dragonflies and many others all do their bit to help me. My pest problems would probably bankrupt a professional grower, but I can easily tolerate the losses.
By growing a selection of different varieties of fruit, the pests tend to have their favourites that draw all the attention, and often the pests leave the other trees virtually unharmed.

[cinnpie]

LMAO! OK, I'll try not to be such a worry wart!
many tanks for the sage advice!

Cin 8)