Apple tree feeding

[Compo72]

We have a medium size apple tree in the middle of our lawn .
I have read that now or the coming weeks is a good time to feed the tree .

Can someone please advise how and when and what with .
I can give tree some tlc .

Can I apply sulphate of potash diluted in the watering can around the tree . Will this have any detrimental affect on the grass ?

Thanks in advance




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[orangepippin]

A small amount of general purpose fruit and veg feed is useful in early spring.

For small or medium size trees you may find you get better results simply by removing the turf from around the tree to a diameter of 1m or so. This will prevent competition from the grass.

[FB.]

Is there a reason why you want to feed the tree? Is it not performing well?
Do you know the variety and the rootstock it is grafted onto?

If the tree is not a dwarf and is growing and cropping normally, you might find that it's best to leave it alone and that feeding might be a bad idea.
Some varieties - especially the older types - don't do so well when pampered; they like a tough life because that's how they were grown in centuries past.
Many old varieties are well-adapted to growing a cropping well in very poor soil and will often suffer from bitter pit spoiling the fruit or will grow out of control if they get a whiff of fertiliser.

[Compo72]

We moved here just over a year ago .
It's not a dwarf tree , the prev owners looked to have had it pruned it at some stage .

Last year we did not have many eating apples from it .

I'm going to try and go this year to an event to see which variety of apple tree it a .

I though give it.a bit of feed this year .

We have also ordered a crap apple tree which I stand corrected helps pollination for the apple tree .

I grew up on a small holding with around 20 apple trees . That used to crop year in year out . Enough to sell at the roadside .
These were mature trees that never got fed anything.




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[FB.]

We moved here just over a year ago .
It's not a dwarf tree , the prev owners looked to have had it pruned it at some stage .

Last year we did not have many eating apples from it .

A lot of old apple trees become biennial (bear fruit only every second year), but poor pruning technique or over-feeding will reduce their cropping too.
A mature non-dwarf tree produces its best fruit when it is slightly hungry, slightly thirsty and slightly stressed by the competing roots of grass of other plants around it.
On the other hand, a happy tree will grow but not fruit; mother nature designed trees to get as big as possible as quickly as possible when they have the chance (i.e. in fertile soil conditions) so as to crowd-out and shade-out the competition.
Only when the tree can't grow much more (due to low-fertility soil and/or competition from other plants) will it decide that it's best to put its effort into reproduction.

Other reasons for poor crop could be the terrible spring weather in recent years. Cold wet windy weather leaves honey bees and other pollinators grounded, so the flowers don't get pollinated and don't go on to produce much fruit as a result.
It's also possible that there are no suitable apple trees nearby for bees to carry the pollen to your tree. Most apple trees need pollen to be brought to them by bees, from another apple tree nearby and the pollinator tree generally needs to be a different and unrelated variety.

[Stan79]

We have also ordered a crap apple tree which I stand corrected helps pollination for the apple tree .

What's so bad about it?

[orangepippin]

I'm not sure of the pollination characteristics of crap apples, but crab apples are good pollinators of apple trees.

[salome2001]

What's so bad about it?

I was wondering the same thing