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nafex - [NAFEX] apple blooming too much?

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  • From: Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>
  • To: NAFEX Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] apple blooming too much?
  • Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 07:19:26 -0400

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.




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