I have not had much success with my fruit trees. My fruit tree orchard in Squamish consist of three old fruit trees (transparent apple, pear and plum). Over the last few years, I have planted cheery, peach and pluot trees. With the old trees, I have had only one successfull harvest of apples. This year the old fruit trees had lots of blossoms but no fruit. With the new trees I have some cherries and some pluotfruit showing. I used a dormant spray late in the seasons ( blossom were present on all the trees. After the spray, the apple and pear blossums turned to a rusty brown. Would this be caused be the late spaying or too high of a concentration. Any other suggestions on what steps I should take to improve the production.
The apple probably needs cross-pollination. The spray probably did ruin the flowers. In addition to what damage may be caused to the trees by spraying inappropriate chemicals at flowering time any beneficial insects present then may also be adversely affected. Stone fruits such as cherry and peach are among the hardest to grow. For some relevant links, have a look at this. http://gardening.wsu.edu/text/treef.htm
Thanks for the information. Two years ago, I grafted anothe type of apple to the transparant apple tree. There were a number of blossoms on the grafted branch, so I would expect there was some opportuity for cross-pollination. However, I didnot have one single apple produced. Well, next year I plan to do a much better job with the spray.
To get pollination you have to pair up particular specific varieties, if the grafted branch was a random choice it may not have been a suitable match.
