Brown apples

[oliveau]

Here's my Tydeman's Late Orange, now 7 years old. Last summer it had no apples at all as they all went brown & rotted. I cleared all the dead fruit away from the tree, and in the winter I took all the mummified fruit off and disposed of it.


This year I again have a lot of brown mummified apples:




The mummification seems to happen even with newly formed fruits, and later on I find one of a cluster of green fruits going brown and infecting the others.

I'm told it's Brown Rot, and not only untreatable, but there is no preventative chemical treatment either. Any ideas please? Should I grub this particular tree out?

I don't think it's to do with wet weather and rain splash infection as we haven't had 5" rain since the beginning of January.

[FB.]

The problem is brown rot.

Something is causing damage to the fruit skins, which then allows the brown rot fungus to invade.

What is your climate like?
Is it too wet and the fruits are splitting from scab damage? I see that the leaves are green and healthy, so scab doesn't look to be the problem.

Is it too dry and the fruits split when they finally see some rain and try to grow too fast and split? Its parent "Laxton's Superb" will do that.

Is it windy in your area? Tydeman's Orange is quite a long, slender tree that can be rocked significantly by the wind, which may be damaging/bruising the fruits and allowing brown rot.

If it is only a portion of the fruits being damaged, I would not worry.
However, my Tydeman's Orange does not suffer from brown rot at all - perhaps you have the wrong variety.

[FB.]

As for whether to remove the tree....

I'd say not. I find TLO to be an outstanding tree - one of the best.

I suggest that your tree may need to be stiffened-up by better pruning (to prevent wind-throw) and the crowded canopy opened-up (to allow better air circulation and less humidity which encourages rots). The affected fruits look like they're in shady locations.
It is said that a well-pruned apple tree should be able to have a tennis ball thrown upwards through the leafless branches in winter, without the tennis ball hitting a branch on the way up. Otherwise the tree is too crowded, with a damp and shaded canopy and fruits or branches which rub against each other in the slightest breeze.

[oliveau]

We had a dry winter/spring [less than 100mm of rain between 1 January and the end of June] followed by plenty of rain since.

However, I first noticed the problem last year, and it's spreading to adjoining trees. I understand that the infection can creep down into the spurs, therefore being self-perpetuating. So I'm inclined to give all my trees a really hard prune this winter. Is there a fungicide that I could apply during flowering as that is when the disease seems to start? I'm finding lots of tiny black fruits suggesting to me that the fungus is attacking at the flowering stage.

I don't have any other fruit problems apart from a few fallers which have been attacked by codling moth. It can however be quite windy when the wind is in the SW, even though there's a 3m Leylandii [Aargh!] hedge around the orchard to protect it from the prevailing wind.