New apple trees flowering

[mc1970]

Hello,

In mid December last year I planted two early Apple trees which were bought from a well respected nursery in the south of England. The trees were maiden whips and were listed as suited to "northern climates". I planted them as 45 degree cordons and pruned the main stem back by a third to try and promote lower down growth. All the buds have now burst open but to my surprise ALL of the buds have produced flowers and none of them as branch growth . This has happened with both trees which I wasn't expecting.

Does anyone know if this is normal or could the trees have been stressed in some way causing the trees to start fruiting?

I have other slightly more established trees which don't seem to have the same issue.

Any advice that anyone can give would be appreciated. I don't plan to let the trees fruit for another couple of years and will likely pinch out all of this year's flowers.

Cheers,
Scott.

[FB.]

Some varieties (and especially two-year-old maidens) will form flower buds along the main stem. They are ideal for cordons because cordons are intended to fruit along the whole main stem. These natural spurs will save you a lot of pruning.
If you mentioned to the nursery that you wanted to grow cordons, then they may have supplied trees best suited to the purpose; cordons are basically supposed to be a stem with fruit spurs along its length. These fruit spurs will gradually produce more spurs and occasional branches as the tree matures.

Flower buds form-up in the season before they flower (so these flower buds that are opening now will have formed last summer).
If I get a maiden with excessive flower buds on it that I don't want, I pinch them off during the winter, which causes aggressive leaf sprouts from where the pinched-out buds were.
However, pinching-out the flower buds once they start to open doesn't have the same effect. But you could pinch-off the flower buds next winter and the spurs would turn into branches.

Once settled, young trees will often convert fruit spurs into new branches.

You don't mention variety or rootstock, which might affect how best to manage the trees.

[mc1970]

Hi FB,

If it's expected then I'll not worry as much. I go ahead with my deflowering exercise this year and keep an eye out for the bud formation next winter and wil try to knock off any flower buds in the wrong places.

For the record, I've planted two early varieties, Scrumptious and Sunrise. Both are M26 rootstocks and are in fairly loamy/clay soil type which I've improved with a big dump of compost and a bit of sharp sand. They are both planted against a southerly fence in a sheltered position.

Thanks for the help again.

[FB.]

Watch out for the Scrumptious.
The pleasant taste, thin skin and early ripening make them very attractive to codling moth (maggots) and nibbling insects such as wasps and ants.
My Scrumptious (and Ellison's Orange) lose most of the crop to insect damage, but I keep growing it because it does a great job of drawing the attacks away from my other apples.

[mc1970]

I also read that Scrumptious had been given an RHS award for garden merit, which is first Apple variety to be given this since 1998. Roll on the first apple. Just hope I manage to get to it before my insects do.

[FB.]

You won't beat the codling moths; they lay eggs on or near the flowers/fruitlets at any time now (I've squashed a few codling moths that were loitering on my Discovery - a parent of Scrumptious).
Once the eggs hatch in the next few weeks, the maggots tunnel into the fruitlets when they're pea-sized and riddle them with holes and excrement.

By all means see what happens, but with varieties such as Scrumptious and Ellison's Orange, I suspect that you'll need to use some Codling moth traps if you ever want a reasonable crop of fruit.
Some apples are highly resistant to pests though, so Codling can be beaten if you're plagued with them.

[Hermit]

Both my bramley clone and breaburn have uopened flowers on them at the moment, im surprised at the breaburn as it got mildew last year and had to be sprayed and pruned. My cherrys and pear are flowering well.

[jaimie]

[QUOTE=FB.;663269]Some varieties (and especially two-year-old maidens) will form flower buds along the main stem. They are ideal for cordons because cordons are intended to fruit along the whole main stem. These natural spurs will save you a lot of pruning.
If you mentioned to the nursery that you wanted to grow cordons, then they may have supplied trees best suited to the purpose; cordons are basically supposed to be a stem with fruit spurs along its length. These fruit spurs will gradually produce more spurs and occasional branches as the tree matures.

Flower buds form-up in the season before they flower (so these flower buds that are opening now will have formed last summer).
If I get a maiden with excessive flower buds on it that I don't want, I pinch them off during the winter, which causes aggressive leaf sprouts from where the pinched-out buds were.
However, pinching-out the flower buds once they start to open doesn't have the same effect. But you could pinch-off the flower buds next winter and the spurs would turn into branches.
_______________________________________

Being new to all this, how do you tell the difference between incipient flower buds and the other kind which you want to turn into spurs?

[FB.]

Both my bramley clone and breaburn have uopened flowers on them at the moment, im surprised at the breaburn as it got mildew last year and had to be sprayed and pruned. My cherrys and pear are flowering well.

Stress can make a tree flower.
If your Braeburn suffered a bad mildew attack, the stress will persuade it to flower, in an effort to reproduce before it is killed by the disease. Of course, if you spray it, it won't be killed - but the tree doesn't know that.

Stress can also include reduced water, reduced feeding/poor soils, or hard pruning in July.

[FB.]

Being new to all this, how do you tell the difference between incipient flower buds and the other kind which you want to turn into spurs?

Although the buds vary slightly from one variety to another (and not all buds will be classic in appearance), there are some general ways to help identify them:

Flower buds tend to be larger than leaf buds.

Flower buds ten to protrude out more from the branch/stem.

Flower buds tend to be covered in a fine layer of hairs.

Flower buds tend to open a week or two before the leaf buds, although the first stage of an opening flower bud is to form a "rosette" of leaves, with the flowers forming in the middle.

On spur-bearing varieties, flower buds only usually form on two-year-old stems (go out and look at some blossom on a variety of fruit trees and on most of them, you'll see that the tip-most 6-12 inches of most branches have no blossom because it is last-years wood and not two-year-old).
This does not apply to tip-bearing varieties (tip-bearers are not very common and most tip-bearers also fruit on spurs), where flower buds form on last years wood.

Does that help?