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Is there a mineral deficiency that would cause my apple trees to not bloom?

 
steward
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Unless I'm mistaken, all but one of my apple trees have no buds this year. One of them--the Gravenstein--hasn't bloomed in three years, and it's my largest tree. What am I doing wrong? Am I pruning them wrong? Is there a mineral deficiency that would cause this? Here's some pictures of my trees.
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Gravenstein that hasn't bloomed in three years
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There's no buds here, right?
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Gala bloomed lots last year and made like 20 apples
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There's no buds on this Gala, right?
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This Braeburn made lots of apples last year, too.
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Do you see buds on this Braeburn?
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This Jonagold made some apples last year, but the deer pruned it heavily
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Theres' no buds on this Jonagold, is there?
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The Honeycrip has tons of buds, and did last year, too.
 
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I have several thoughts about this.  It could be a case of biennial bearing.  A tree that produces a heavy crop one year will sometimes fail to bear fruit the following year while it "rests".  The usual remedy is increased thinning of the fruit when there is a heavy fruit set.  Commercial orchardists that want to optimize their crop have some rules about leaf to fruit ratios.  I'm not so concerned about getting every last apple.  So, I have never researched this in depth.

As for minerals,  if a tree gets too much nitrogen sometimes it will grow leaves instead of fruit.  I do know that honeycrisps need lots and lots of calcium to produce a crop. Since the honeycrisps is the only one blooming I would not expect calcium to be short.  Potassium is the most important mineral for producing fruit.  It is also rather slow to become available in the soil.  So, the trees may have used up all they could get last year and are now going without.

If it was me I would get a soil test done.  Any land grant university will have a soil lab and extension offices around the state.  They can tell you based on the sample what minerals are present.  Then you wouldn't have to rely on my guesswork.  They will also make recommendations.
 
steward
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If they are young trees they may take a couple of years off of fruiting as they grow.  Some of my trees haven't put more than a couple of apples on in the 5 years I've had them, while other in the same area have fruited to the point of nearly breaking.  My honey crisp fruits so heavily each year that I've had to do some serious work to keep it somewhat vertical.  For the most part all of my older trees (50 years+) generally fruit heavily one year and then lightly the next.

I'm no apple expert, but I'd say that your trees are taking this year to do some rooting and vegetative growing.  With luck, next year will have a bumper crop of fruits.  Adding in some compost around the tree and planting some orchard companions like chives, comfrey, tansy, burdock, clover and other ground covers around the drip line of the tree can help mine minerals and nutrients for your apple trees to work with.

One other thing that may or may not apply is the concern about apple borers.  If they exist in your area, it's a good idea to keep an eye out for them between May and October when they are feeding on your trees' innards.  They can really do a lot of damage in a short time and rob the tree of it's fruiting ability.  Thankfully either compressed air or a thin wire is all you need to kill them.

You're trees look great to me.   Nice work.
 
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This happened to me as well Nicole.

I find myself wondering if it was that week of crazy june-like weather we had before a hailstorm.

Worth noting that Honeycrisp is typically a very late bloomer that probably dodged a storm on blossoms.
 
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