Double grafted apple tree problem

VirtualWorld

Hi all,

I wonder if anyone has any advise for me on this one. I have an apple tree with two species growing on the same root stock. Ideal for my small garden.

However, one of the varieties is performing very poorly. Just one branch growing while the rest of the tree is made up of the other variety. Would you recommend very severe pruning on the healthier one this winter? I suspect I will have a very tiny if any crop of apples this year. I've had the tree for about 3 years now. It's looking great and healthy apart from this gross imbalance between the two varieties.

VirtualWorld

I'm still hoping someone can advise on this.

I had fed my garden early on in the year fairly extensively with compost tea. The garden seems to have rewarded me with lush green growth. Apple & plum tree included. Now this could have been the result of wet warm conditions either. One way or the other my crop of fruit has been poor (almost non existent) over last year. I can't say whether the imbalance of growth was the reason for this, or the fertilizing, or the weather. The plum tree has given a few fruits whereas I don't think I've any on the apple.

Suggestions please. Or even a contact to approach to get an answer on this one.

Many thanks

looksee

Conditions have been poor this year.

Excessive feeding and feeding with the wrong feed can produce a lot of foliage at the expense of fruit.

I don't know much about fruit tree pruning, but it is possible that pruning the vigorous side of the tree would actually encourage more growth! It may be that its the weak side that needs pruning, but you will probably get more authoritative information on that from someone else.

Oldtree

I would agree with that idea but I have no experience with double grafts other then in books. I would however suggest that as one is doing much better that the other one has been damaged in some form or another or even that the graft was somewhat unsuccessful, and a harsh pruning of the successful one could lead to excessive shooting from that successful one further deminishing the resourses available to the non successful one.

I think one feeding of your compost tea a year would be ok as it isnt 10-10-20, i give mine a feed every two years or so organic liquid feed and liquid seaweed, but most soils have sufficient nutrition for most trees to grow.

a few pictures would be interesting to give a better idea of what may be wrong.

Northumbria

Like people have already said, it's been a poor year for fruit in general. Some varieties are naturally more productive than others, or as mentioned it could just be the poor weather or a bad graft.
What two varieties are used? This will give us a better idea.

The Hill Billy

I have a 7yo apple tree that produces 2 varieties also. It has been steadily giving a better crop year after year until this year. We probably took around 70-80 apples last year. When I checked the tree last week there were only 2 apples on it.

It is also worth mentioning that 4 years ago one of the varieties failed to produce altogether. I just left it - no pruning or anything & it was fine the following year.

VirtualWorld

Thanks guys. It's too dark to take a pic now but I will tomorrow evening. I'm hopeful the lack of fruit is down to over feeding, but concerned that it MAY be associated with lack of pollination due to insufficient blossom on the part that isn't doing well. I am considering putting in another apple tree this year, that should solve that problem. However if there was a way to encourage better growth in the least dominant variety on the tree I'm open to trying it. I did wonder about the pruning along the same lines as above alright. Would it be wiser to only prune the less dominant part of the tree and neglect the dominant for a couple of years?

Northumbria

VirtualWorld wrote: »

Thanks guys. It's too dark to take a pic now but I will tomorrow evening. I'm hopeful the lack of fruit is down to over feeding, but concerned that it MAY be associated with lack of pollination due to insufficient blossom on the part that isn't doing well. I am considering putting in another apple tree this year, that should solve that problem. However if there was a way to encourage better growth in the least dominant variety on the tree I'm open to trying it. I did wonder about the pruning along the same lines as above alright. Would it be wiser to only prune the less dominant part of the tree and neglect the dominant for a couple of years?

One of the ideas behind family trees is that both varieties pollinate each other - you shouldn't need another apple tree to do the pollinating!
Often in years such as this it is the blossom getting damaged by wind and rain and the lack of bees due to the poor weather that is to blame. So planting another tree won't fix the problem.

Lack of pollination is usually weather related. Basically if we have a crap spring then we have a crap harvest.
Putting trees in a sheltered place would possibly save some of the blossom but it might cast shade.