Poorly Apple Tree

[jstvj]

I'm not a gardener and never will be, but I wonder if anyone can point me in the right direction with my apple tree problem. It's quite a young tree and had good fruit from it last year. This year:nowt. I blame all the bloody rain.

Looking at the tree the leaves are discoloured with brown spots and something has been chomping on them. However, my main concern is the thicker branches where they divide. There are large growths, made up of small cauliflower looking things, greyish white/blue in colour. Some of the wood is dead.

Any good person out there that can advise please. How do I treat it, apart from burning of course. Thanks John.

PS using iPhone so can't upload any pictures.

[FB.]

Hi jstv

It's helpful to put your location in your profile (not all of our members live in the UK - and the UK has many different climates and weather patterns).
It is also helpful to post pictures because, as they say; a picture is worth a thousand words. However, I appreciate that you say you're unable to, and you'll have to accept some risk that we're wrong with our diagnosis - would your doctor diagnose a problem which you've never had before over the phone?

You also don't mention the variety you have, nor the rootstock, nor its age, nor the way you're growing it (as a big tree, as a containerised dwarf or as some trained form such as a fan, espalier or cordon).
These can also be helpful piece of information.

Anyway, you probably have several things going on:

Fruit trees can easily become biennial.
If allowed to overcrop, they bear such a heavy crop one year that they (and the soil) are exhausted and unable to bear a crop the next. An exhausted tree - especially if it's a dwarf and not given balanced nutrients also tends to be more prone to disease (which you seem to be finding).

Thinning of heavy crops is a good idea if it's practical. Thinning works best if the blossoms are thinned rather than fruitlets; the presence of too many fertilised flowers can, itself, induce zero crop the next year due to hormonal influence. Removing about one-third of the blossoms would be helpful if there seems to be an abundance of flowers.

Lack of fruit could also be due to the tree not having a nearby (and compatible) pollination partner, or simply because the bees did not visit. Bees do not like wet, nor do they like exposed conditions where it is difficult for them to fly.

The "brown spots" on the leaves is probably scab. It's a fungal disease that thrives on leaf surfaces which have been wet for several hours - so lots of rain will tend to cause lots of scab. The common (well-known) varieties of apple tend to be very prone to disease and often the fruit of common varieties is of better quality (and cheaper) than home-grown, if bought from a supermarket.
The rarer types which you won't find in the supermarkets tend to be very disease resistant and I always encourage people to plant unusual varieties for both the trouble-free performance and the interesting flavours and textures.
If the scab is just a one-off due to a bad year, spraying may not be necessary. But if it's happening every year, you may have to spray several times during the season, or may need to re-graft the tree to a more resistant variety if you want to be spray-free.
Once leaves or fruit show symptoms, they can't be cured. Raking-up the fallen scabby leaves might go some way to reducing the carry-over of infection to the next season. It depends on your location and climate as to whether scab might be a problem in the future.


The grey-blue-white-cauliflower-things sound like clumps of woolly aphids. They ought to be got rid of before they cause the branches to split, deform and possibly become secondariliy infected with canker or wood-rotting fungi. A good blast with a hosepipe - or soapy water and a brush - will get rid of them.

[jstvj]

Hi jsYtv

It's helpful to put your location in your profile (not all of our members live in the UK - and the UK has many different climates and weather patterns).
It is also helpful to post pictures because, as they say; a picture is worth a thousand words. However, I appreciate that you say you're unable to, and you'll have to accept some risk that we're wrong with our diagnosis - would your doctor diagnose a problem which you've never had before over the phone?

You also don't mention the variety you have, nor the rootstock, nor its age, nor the way you're growing it (as a big tree, as a containerised dwarf or as some trained form such as a fan, espalier or cordon).
These can also be helpful piece of information.

Anyway, you probably have several things going on:

Fruit trees can easily become biennial.
If allowed to overcrop, they bear such a heavy crop one year that they (and the soil) are exhausted and unable to bear a crop the next. An exhausted tree - especially if it's a dwarf and not given balanced nutrients also tends to be more prone to disease (which you seem to be finding).

Thinning of heavy crops is a good idea if it's practical. Thinning works best if the blossoms are thinned rather than fruitlets; the presence of too many fertilised flowers can, itself, induce zero crop the next year due to hormonal influence. Removing about one-third of the blossoms would be helpful if there seems to be an abundance of flowers.

Lack of fruit could also be due to the tree not having a nearby (and compatible) pollination partner, or simply because the bees did not visit. Bees do not like wet, nor do they like exposed conditions where it is difficult for them to fly.

The "brown spots" on the leaves is probably scab. It's a fungal disease that thrives on leaf surfaces which have been wet for several hours - so lots of rain will tend to cause lots of scab. The common (well-known) varieties of apple tend to be very prone to disease and often the fruit of common varieties is of better quality (and cheaper) than home-grown, if bought from a supermarket.
The rarer types which you won't find in the supermarkets tend to be very disease resistant and I always encourage people to plant unusual varieties for both the trouble-free performance and the interesting flavours and textures.
If the scab is just a one-off due to a bad year, spraying may not be necessary. But if it's happening every year, you may have to spray several times during the season, or may need to re-graft the tree to a more resistant variety if you want to be spray-free.
Once leaves or fruit show symptoms, they can't be cured. Raking-up the fallen scabby leaves might go some way to reducing the carry-over of infection to the next season. It depends on your location and climate as to whether scab might be a problem in the future.


The grey-blue-white-cauliflower-things sound like clumps of woolly aphids. They ought to be got rid of before they cause the branches to split, deform and possibly become secondariliy infected with canker or wood-rotting fungi. A good blast with a hosepipe - or soapy water and a brush - will get rid of them.

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply so comprehensively. Very helpful, thank you, I will take on board all you say

[orangepippin]

The main cause of fruit failure in apple this year is undoubtedly the remarkably bad spring weather, although it obviously depends where you are. The weather has also favoured many apple tree diseases.

In a normal year the most likely cause of blossom failure (and hence fruit failure) is incorrect pruning the previous year.

If you had some blossom but no fruitlets formed afterwards, that suggests lack of pollination. Since you say it fruited last year, there must be other pollinator trees nearby, so a failure this year would most likely be caused by lack of pollinating insects.

All in all you are probably right to blame the weather.