Hello, I am hoping someone might be able to help me. I purchased a house a few years back and it has what I thought was a crab apple tree. During my first summer in the house I ate one of the apples and discovered that it was not a crab apple tree it was actually an apple (maybe a mac?) tree. It was a very neglected tree. So last year I started to prune it. I took some off the top and sides, bringing it to a more manageable size. There was an improvement in the fruit. Instead of many small crab apple sized fruit, I had fewer but real apple sized fruit. However, most of the fruit was no good (appeared to be rotten on tree), the some of the leaves turned brown before fall, and some of the leaves appeared to be eaten. I could not identify any insects at the time that would cause this problem. This year I have pruned again, opening up the "socket" keeping only the major branches I want to keep. I am a little worried because already I have noticed a couple of brown leaves and a couple that appear to be eaten (see pictures). Not sure if it is the scab? There are also thousands of little flies (see pictures) around my tree, on the leaves, flowers, and my backyard as well as my neighbors. They don't appear to be doing any damage to the tree but is seems weird that there are so many on the tree. I am just hoping someone can point me in the right direction so I can actually eat some of my own apples this year. Thanks in advance.
I live less than block away from Lake Ontario. I think you are right about the insect being a Chironomid. I did a quick search and it does not appear that they are know to be a pest to apple trees, so I think I can rule them out. Thanks for your help.
Doesn't look like scab, probably not to worry about unless a vast number of leafs have it. I don't know why apples would rot on the tree (before ripe, before winter?). It'd be good to dispose of fallen leaves and fruit in the fall to reduce problems for the following year. How does it look like it is producing this year?
It looks like it is producing well this year. Lots of fruit, and they are starting to get pretty big. I think I might have over reacted earlier, it seems to be only on a few leaves. It is similar to what I saw last year, but did not affect the whole tree. In the fall last year I did a good job getting rid of all the fallen fruit and leaves, so that might have helped. Thanks for your help.
