Weather effect on biennial apple cropping!

[veggiechicken]

Many of my old trees crop biennially and 2011 was not a particularly good year.
This year the winds at blossom time took most of the flowers and the few that did set never matured. As a result can I expect a bumper crop next year instead of the one that I might have had this year? Or do the trees maintain the same cropping pattern whether or not they have produced fruit?

[rustylady]

Sorry VC, no idea. I didn't want you to think you were being ignored though.

[veggiechicken]

Thanks Rusty

[FB.]

If the trees had a light (or no) crop this year then they should have a full reserve with which to crop profusely next year - weather and pollination permitting.

In other words: a tree will crop when it has adequate reserves. If it exhausts itself with a heavy crop in one season, it will crop little or nothing the next while it rebuilds its strength.

So biennial-ism is more a case of a tree being so fertile that it over-crops, exhausts itself, then has to take a year off. I do wonder whether diploids are generally more prone to biennial bearing because of their higher seeds count per fruit (more babies to feed) than triploids.
It is the pips which contain the bulk of the tree's energy - especially the important nutrients. The fruit flesh is mostly water and sugar, with varying amounts of flavours and acids - but nothing particularly demanding compared to the pips within.
Note that apple pips contain traces of cyanide. Eating a few pips occasionally won't do any harm, but eating too many apple pips will have poisonous side effects!

[veggiechicken]

Thank you FB, as ever, I learn something new from your posts!
I had the wrong date in mine, I should have said that 2011 was not a particularly good year, so that, coupled with a non-existent crop this year - could mean the trees are laden next year - unless next year is like this one
On the cyanide issue, it was always my boast that I would eat an entire apple, core and pips, all bar the stalk - and I did that for years. Then I heard about cyanide in the pips........ Seem to remember something about eating a bucketful of pips for it to have any toxic effect (could be making this up though!).

[orangepippin]

I think there is more cyanide in plum seeds (inside the stone). That's why you sometimes get that rather nice almond-like flavour, e.g. in Victoria plum crumble!

[veggiechicken]

Many plum jam recipes advise you to crack open the plum stones and add the kernels to the jam (in muslin). Are they trying to get rid of us ?

[FB.]

You can taste the cyanide - it's the powerful smelling salts/ammonia/bleach-like smell/taste that wafts up your nose while chewing an apple pip.
Mother nature generally programmed us to dislike most natural poisons - or to vomit it back out again if we were greedy. Same as with "food poisoning" causing vomiting and/or diarrhoea: your body ejects it as fast as it can.
Just don't go around chewing at everything expecting your body to reject what's not good!

Eating the core of an apple shouldn't cause a problem if it is not too many and not too often.
As OP says: most people need to eat quite a few apple pips (probably dozens) before it's likely to make you ill.
Eating multiple apple cores a day might start to cause a problem!

[veggiechicken]

One or two apples a day was sufficient in my pip-eating period I think I'm over it now
The difference may have been that I didn't chew the pips - just swallowed them, so was unaware of any nasty taste. Never again!

[Qzy]

Some people think that eating Apple Pips (vitimin B17) may help to prevent cancer .....

Eat APPLE PIPS to avoid cancer

[FB.]

Some people think that eating Apple Pips (vitimin B17) may help to prevent cancer .....

Eat APPLE PIPS to avoid cancer

I've also heard that a tiny amount of even something as nasty as cyanide can be beneficial. Alcohol is toxic but is beneficial is sensible quantities.
Humans - and most animals - are designed to cope with eating occasional disagreeable things. Evolution wouldn't have got as far as it has, if we dropped dead after merely catching a whiff of something toxic.
Actually, it is even possible to make yourself ill from taking too many vitamin supplements (and I believe that supplements just aren't the same as getting it in a natural way from our diet).

Mr.Caveman didn't have modern science to tell him that something was toxic. He probably just scoffed the whole apple, pips-and-all (including maggots in the core - it's all extra protein ) .......and another....and another.....until eventually chased away by a dinosaur or heeding the call of nature.