North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[david.maxwell@dal.ca]

Now I really need advice.  I have a mature apple tree, Bramley's Seedling 
grafted to a 
seedling rootstock about 7 years ago.  It has borne abundantly for the past 5 
years.  This 
spring, however, there is not a single blossom anywhere on the  tree. The 
leaf buds are all 
coming out, but not a single fruit bud.  Another tree grafted to Bramley's 
more recently, 
nearby, has some blossoms (not a huge number, but certainly bearing), 
suggesting that this 
isn't a question of all the fruit spurs having been frozen off or something.  
(I don't know 
whether this ever actually happens, but it sounded possible.)  Other vareties 
are happily 
blooming, so it seems unlikely to be related to climatic conditions.  
Obviously most apples 
tend to be biennial; is this just an extreme example of biennial (not) 
bearing?  (Does this 
happen - absolutely no blossoms in the "off" years?)