Apple trees and drought conditions.

[bills]

We had, as several areas seemed to a longer hotter, dryer summer than normal. Two of my apple trees really suffered as we are on well water, and I couldn't afford to heavily water as much as I would have liked to. The early ripening variety, dropped almost all of it's fruit, almost like it knew to sacrifice it's own seed to survive, back in mid August. The apples did actually taste pretty good, but were very small.

A later ripening tree, decided to sacrifice specific branch's. The entire branch, with fruit still hanging on seemed to die off. The rest of the tree, still heavy with apples seems to be doing fine. The apples are smaller than usual though.

Another late ripening variety has been just recently began dropping fruit, still not ripened. All the branches seem perfectly healthy though.

I wonder if this is natures way of dealing with drought conditions? I also wonder how this will effect the trees in the future..sure wish I had an unlimited source of water, as I felt bad for them..

 

[Greensage45]

Hi there,

I am so sorry to hear of your trees. I find it odd that you feel that the tree will 'sacrifice' a limb. I have seen trees lose their leaves and go into a summer dormancy before from lack of water, but I do not think I have witnessed a tree sacrifice a portion of itself in order to maintain the other branches.

Have you discussed this with other apple tree growers in your area? Have you noticed this in the neighboring trees around you?

One of the suggestions that might work may not be legal in your area. Do you know if the use of Grey/Gray water is acceptable in your community? This would be water from the sink, washer, or tub.

If it is legal, tapping into the system might be a bit costly but in the long run it would pay off. The amount of water used in a household might constitute 80% of your overall water usage. This would certainly keep all your trees well and alive.

You would have to be thoughtful of what goes down the drain, but it would be worth it.

I do hope you find more answers soon,

Goodluck,

Ron

 

[bills]

Ron, I have though about the greywater being recycled. It would take quite a bit of engineering to do so. It would have to go into a in-ground tank of sorts to be stored, and then a pump to pump it out when needed. Of course in the rainy months, unless I had a valve to divert it back to the septic field, I would have to install a drain field for the greywater tank. Not impossible, but quite a challange..

If our climate change really become significant, this may be a great answer for those future dry years.

I wonder, what does summer dormancy look like on a tree? On the branches I was speaking off, the leaves all turned brown, not dropping though. The apples that were growing on the branches all still hanging, started to shrink up, as if there was no water/sap in the branch, any longer. The rest of the branches all look fine still, green leaves, fruit looking fine, although about 20% smaller than usual.

 

[Greensage45]

I found this interesting article that pertains to my State of New Mexico. I am not sure any of could help, but I did find it interesting that they are now recognizing several types of dormancy. The summer dormancy is called Ecodormancy.

Dormancy: Dormancy is the inability to resume growth when placed in a favorable environment. By this, we mean, if it were feasible to move an apple tree into a greenhouse in late December, it would not begin to grow, or it would begin to grow unevenly after an extended exposure to warm temperatures. Dormancy is a complicated biological phenomenon that is only partially understood. Recently, additional terminology was proffered by Lang et al. (1987). They separated dormancy into three types; ecodormancy, endodormancy, and paradormancy. Ecodormancy is the cessation of growth induced by environmental factors. For example, in summer with excessive evaporative demand, high temperature and moisture stress, plants will cease active elongation. As soon as environmental conditions become favorable, growth will resume. Thus ecodormancy is a short term phenomenon induced and alleviated by the same variable, usually moisture.

Here is that complete article: http://weather.nmsu.edu/nmcrops/Trees/Apples/coldhard_dorm/cold-hardiness.htm

I am really amazed at how progressively there has been a steady decline in apple production since 1977. Personally I lost all of my apples this year.

I will still try to drum up some photos, they might help.

Ron