North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>]

I have a small Ashmeads Kernal on M7, with two Karmijn grafts on it.   
The tree has been in the ground a couple of years.  It is about 4 feet  
tall and has lots of root competition, as it's planted on the edge of  
a wooded area.  It also has moderate winter-moth damage.  I've had  
winter moth troubles for the past few years, have treated aggressively  
with spinosad the last two, and treated a little less aggressively  
this year.

This year it is covered in flower buds.  Maybe the amount of flowering  
is normal in some conditions, but it's way in excess of what I've ever  
seen on my eating-apples.  It looks more like the ornamental crabs.   
(We have wild seedling crabs all over the place, but even for being  
random seedlings, they are very ornamental this week.)  None of my  
other domestic apples has anything like the density of flower buds --  
the two trees I planted at the same time (golden russet on one of the  
new geneva rootstocks, G30, and Tydemans late Orange on M111, all  
planted spring '05) don't plan to bloom this year.

Should I be worried?  Should I remove the blossoms?  Most of the  
blossoms?  There's even a flower cluster on one of the Karmijn grafts,  
which I'm oh so tempted to allow to fruit.

Thanks,
Ginda Fisher
eastern Mass., zone 6
where the crab apples are at peak bloom, and the eating apples are  
just beginning to bloom.  Mmmm, perfumed air.