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Apples falling off tree early

 
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Hoping someone can give some insight into my poor apple tree. I have only had one good crop of apples in the last 5 years. Live in central Kansas. I need to prune it as I know this could help. But this year, I only had about 4 apples on the tree even with the apple tree full of flowers.
 
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Is there another apple nearby to provide pollen?
 
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Did you see pollinators on it? Honey bees and Mason bees would be common enough to spot, but bumble bees might also visit.

Have you tried hand pollinating with a paint brush? ( I do this with my peach tree, as it tends to bloom when the weather isn't nice enough to have good bee coverage.) This doesn't take that long, so if you're only feeding apples to a few people, it's worth trying.

Have you had problems with freezing weather happening *after* flowering? That can kill the flowers also.
 
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Christopher Weeks wrote:Is there another apple nearby to provide pollen?


Apple tree varieties can have quite different blossoming times, so if you decide to plant a second one, make sure the flowering time has significant overlap.
 
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Jay Angler wrote:if you decide to plant a second one, make sure the flowering time has significant overlap.


My approach to this problem was to plant a hundred different varieties. :)
 
Carla Terry
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I do have a new apple tree planted, but not very big yet. So I hope this may help. Thanks for all the replies.
 
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The title intrigued me.

Is it apples falling off the tree early or just not getting enough apples from the flowers?

 
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No apples indicates you probably had a freeze at just the wrong point.  Last year we had almost no fruit of any kind because of a late hard freeze that hit many types of fruit trees.

If fruit is falling off early that is normally a sign of low water conditions.
 
I agree. Here's the link: http://stoves2.com
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