Dormant oil spray discovery

[Smiles Jr.]

I've been having trouble with my apple trees here at PlayStation. In 2012 I helped my mom and dad with their apple harvest and we collected three bushels of beautiful apples from only 5 semi dwarf Macintosh trees. Dad used to take very good care (meticulous) of all the fruits and veggies here but as the years went by and as he got sick the chores here got the best of him.

In 2013 I came here to help with the apple harvest and most of the apples were small, lumpy, and many fell off the tree before maturity. Yes there was evidence of insect damage but not much. I could not determine if animals were the problem either. I was not available to help in 2014.

Last year I tried to care for the trees in the only way I knew - I used dormant oil spray in January 2015 and used a multi-purpose fruit tree spray with Captan twice during the early 2015 growing season. By September all the apples had gone away and there was no harvest at all. The apples simply disappeared. It was almost like someone came in here and picked all the fruit under the cover of darkness. Very few drops on the ground. No sign of nibbling animals. I know that woodpeckers love apples but they always make a mess and leave rotting apples on the branches. We had a bumper crop of woodpeckers last year and we still do.

Today I sprayed dormant oil spray again in hopes that something will change this year. The trees are about 8 or 9 years old and I do not know how long to expect good apple tree performance. All I know is that I'm puzzled by these 5 trees and I'm concerned about the 9 new trees that I planted in the fall of 2014. I had planned to set up one of the trail cameras last fall but did not get around to it. What with all the learning, fixing, harvesting, and bailing I did last fall. Whew!!!

Any ideas? Suggestions? Thanks.

 

[so lucky]

Wow, I hope you figure out what took your apples before you lose them all again! I think I remember you talking about that last year. Don't you have a trail camera set up now?
Are the trees too big to put a net over?
Is your leg getting better?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Semi-dwarf trees, they should be too tall but can deer reach the apples? I've had raccoons climb my plum trees and eat the ripe plums. Humans generally leave no trace when they take something.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

did you see signs of flower buds at all on them last year? how about frost on the buds/flowers if you did see them. sometimes the frost can cause some issues & make the buds damaged so they don't pollinate correctly & this may give you issues with loss of fruit.

college/university websites are my best source of learning-even if i didn't pay to go there!
http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/assessing_frost_and_freeze_damage_to_flowers_and_buds_of_fruit_trees

found this neat site looking for your possible issue from the previous year with the 'bumpy' fruits.
http://pnwhandbooks.org/plantdisease/host-disease-descriptions?page=1

 

[thistlebloom]

Strange. Do I understand what you're saying is that there were normal sized apples growing on them during the summer, but in September when they would be ripening they were completely gone?

If that's the case it sounds more like a human thing as Ridge said.

Fruit trees often bear more heavily in alternate years, unless they've been thinned early in the season, but that wouldn't account for the sudden disappearance. Do you have black bears in your area?

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

ok, disregard my links & thoughts. i think a 2 legged thief could have taken most of those apples. maybe wildlife could have contributed but not that fast!

 

[journey11]

Hmm, by September they would be large and close to ripening, so that is really weird they disappeared without a trace. Are the trees close by where you can keep an eye on them? Sometimes people assume fruit trees are abandoned and up for grabs. It's entirely possible someone picked them, but even then, I'd still expect they'd leave a few higher up. Deer are going to take one bite and leave the rest of the apple on the ground.

Sounds like you did well spraying them. Keep that up. You'll be glad you did. Surely this will be your year! Maybe post a no-trespassing sign, just in case.

My young apple tree finally managed to set fruit last year, about 20 or so apples and some got quite big. I was so excited, I could just taste the pie! Midway through the summer they all fell off/got blown off by the wind and I had ONE nice apple left. Just as it was beginning to blush, a hornet found it and bore a hole in the side. I went ahead and picked it and it was still too bitter and green. Argh!

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

maybe you could put a sign on them that they are 'GMO' or heavily sprayed and see if someone would leave them alone next year?

i'd get that camera up ASAP for next year so you can find the best area to get good pics.

 

[Beekissed]

Around here the squirrels do it. One day you have apples and are waiting for them to ripen, a few days later there isn't an apple one on the tree, especially the dwarf varieties. A few families of squirrels can clean you out...they stripped four dwarf trees here of every single apple.

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Wow! Lots of replies - I don't know where to start.

First of all, I just realized that in my first post I didn't even get to the real reason for the topic. Duh!

"Dormant Oil Spray Discovery". When I went out to one of the barns to get the bottle of oil spray I found that the little booklet that is attached to the bottle had been wet and the pages all stuck together and I could not read the instructions. So I went into the house and went to the Gorden's website to see if I could find the instructions. No problem - printed out the instructions. While I was reading them I looked at the ingredients and found that it is something like 2% inert ingredients and 98% mineral oil. MINERAL OIL????? I paid $9 fr a 16oz. bottle of mineral oil when I could have gone to the drug store and bought a 16oz. bottle of mineral oil laxative for $1.69. When I opened the bottle I sniffed it, no smell. I rubbed some in my fingers, clear oil. Do you think we could achieve the same results with laxative and a few drops of dish washing liquid? Hmmmmm.

@so lucky - yes I have a trail cam set up now. But in the dead of winter all I get is an occasional 'coon, coyote, deer, and our dogs. Not much going on out there now. I could probably get a very large net over the trees but I don't have any nets. My leg is a real problem. I'm doing physical therapy but it does not seem to be helping. That's why I'm messing around with apple trees and not doing any heavy work.

@Ridgerunner - The deer do get some apples but not many. The little orchard is sorta close to the barns and house and the dogs usually police that area pretty well during the days. But most of the deer damage occurs at night, though.

@Chickie'sMomaInNH - Well, we had beautiful buds, beautiful young apples, beautiful apples turning red, then NOTHING. They all disappeared.

@thistlebloom - You described it perfectly. One day apples, next day nothing. Maybe I'm naive but I just cannot imagine someone walking into our farm and setting up ladders to swipe our apples. This farm is out in the boonies and for people to come in from the back they would have to walk quite some distance through the pastures. Our gravel road does not get hardly any traffic.

@journey11 - Usually when animals take our fruit we find lots of sign. Hornet holes and brown spots. Bird pecks. Deer and coon bites. And always a mess in the ground. Maybe I'll discover more clues next fall with the trail cameras.

@Beekissed - We do have lots of squirrels here. Maybe it's time for some stew.