2 Green Thumbs
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Applied Fert & Bug Spray to Apple Trees -Petals Fell Off

The new land we bought had 10 diffrent apple trees about 6 years old on it. Also 6 cherry, 2peach, and 2 pear the same age.I have almost no experiance witrh trees so I have alot of questions. I noticed an few weeks ago that they looked as if they were going to bloom early so in the pre-bud stage I applied some fruit tree spray for bugs. Then just before they budded I mixed up some all purpose fertilizer and gave each one a gallon as per the label. Now all of the flowers have lost their pettles and the trees look, well not terrible but not great leaves are still green but I see no new budding. This same thing took place with my grapes. Did I screw everything up with the fertilizer or spray or is this natural. Any response will be greatly appreciated..I have searched the forum for the answer before posting but did not see anything explaining these circumstances. Thank You for reading!

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applestar
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Hopefully JONA will drop by and answer your questions. I'm pretty sure he'll know.

I'm no help since I don't spray my apple, etc. trees except with milk solution for fungal preventive and sometimes with Surround solution to confuse the insects. For fertilizer, I only apply compost in fall and in spring and AACT in summer.

When I'm in the mood (very random I know) I fine mist spray with strained diluted AACT to improve foliar health and for increased resistance to diseases.

JONA878
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High Green thumbs.
Re your apples.
I can't think that you have hurt your trees with the treatment you have given so far.

You say that the petals have all fallen...so two questions.
Are there small fruitlets starting to swell were the petals have fallen from? If there are then you have got the start of apples forming and all is ok.
If there is nothing at all there except for the ring( rosette) of little leaves then for some reason the blossom has been either killed, damaged in some way or there was no pollination taking place.
Cold weather especially frost can cause any or all of these things.
Have a good look and see.
Did you spray at blossom time?
Any spray will effect pollination as it can damage the viabilty of the pollen ....also if you used an insectacide you will have harmed the very insects that do the pollination.

As regards the buds and growth.
Apples form this small rosette of leaves with the flower truss in the centre first of all. Then the new growth starts to form after the blossom has fallen.
Pears and plums blossom first and then start to grow away.

Hope that helps a little.

:?

2 Green Thumbs
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Thank you so much for the reply, I took a close look lastnight after work and saw what I think are fruitlets, the stem of the flowers ( or what were flowers) have small buldges growing on almost all of them, am I right on this being the fruitlet??? Also two of the apple trees, which were explained to me to be fugi apples, well these guys were still pre-bloom when the others were in full bloom and even after the others had lost there pettles these blooms were still not open just solid green balls on the ends of the stems. Now after the few days of cold weather we had they have turned brown and gotten really hard, and I am pretty sure they are dead. Should I assume that these will not have any fruit this year.

JZydowicz
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Brown flower buds/petals can mean that the flowers have been killed, but they might also be okay. The best advice I can give is to just wait and see. Do you know how cold it got where you are? Are these trees planted in a low/flat area?

2 Green Thumbs
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All trees are in flat rows no hills for miles. I have a very accurate temp transmitter at work on our cooling tower that I trended and it says the lowest temp in the last 6 weeks ( thats the approx time frame that the trees started to bloom) was 26.8 degrees. I know this is accurate it gets calibrated once a week.

Bobc11
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2 Green Thumbs wrote:All trees are in flat rows no hills for miles. I have a very accurate temp transmitter at work on our cooling tower that I trended and it says the lowest temp in the last 6 weeks ( thats the approx time frame that the trees started to bloom) was 26.8 degrees. I know this is accurate it gets calibrated once a week.
Do you know if your apple trees have any sort of diseases on them (ie canker, blossom blight (I think that is peaches... but I may be wrong), etc)?

2 Green Thumbs
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Location: West Lafayette, Indiana

All the trees look fine as far as the bark and branches go I looked ast a canker and do not see any of those on any of my trees apple peach or otherwise. Do the fruitlets grow just under the flower like a pumkin? I have buldges in the stem of the flower but am unsure if they are apples or not. The one with the brown hard buds ( Fugui Apple from what I am told) well it does not look like a good year for this one. We had a month of 70-80 degree temps now we are in the 50-60 degree range I do not think this is good weather for any outdoor tree or plant. AM I WRONG???

JONA878
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Couple of things Bob.

When you say the temp went down to 26.8 I take it that is fahrenheit which is about -3c. This is enough to cause damage to blossoms.
Anything below -2.2 can result in death or at best severe damage to fruit buds.
However the swellings you are finding behind where the petals fell off is indeed where the apple will develope from.
As far as the high and variable temps you have had. This can shake the fruitlets up a bit but they are remarkably tough and it usually results in the skin of the apples getting russeted up a bit.
Apples do need good temperatures in the first month of their growth as this is when the number of cells are laid down in the developing fruitlets.
From that point on all that happens is those cells swell with water and juices.
Poor cell numbers mean small fruits.



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