North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Steve <sdw12986@aol.com>]

That sounds exactly like what happened when I was trying to grow a 
couple of cherry trees, years ago. I ended up with long bare twigs with 
new growth only at the tips.
There were lots of buds along the branches but by spring, they were all 
dead. I'm pretty sure it had to do with the winters being a little 
colder than the trees could tolerate. I probably looked, trying to see 
if the dead buds were leaf or fruit buds. I can't recall, now, what I 
saw. Some possibilities come to mind.
1 The tip buds are hardier than the other buds?
2 All the buds along the twigs were fruit buds with no vegetative buds 
and the fruit buds were not hardy enough? Possible, I suppose because I 
never had more than a hand full fruit and the trees kept trying to make 
more fruit buds.
3 I thought I had a #3 but I lost it.... If my cherry trees and your 
apricot trees both did this due to winter killed buds, I hope last 
winter was unusually cold for your location. If so, maybe it will not 
happen again.

Steve in the Adirondacks


William C. Garthright wrote:

> None of the branches are actually dead (well, one or two very thin ones, 
> I guess), because they are growing from the ends. It's just that there's 
> a long bare space before then. And along the bigger branches, there are 
> all these bare spurs.
>
> I was just wondering if these bare areas would ever produce leaves 
> and/or fruit again. It's been a very nice little tree, but it's about as 
> big as I want it to get, so I'll be summer pruning the growing tips. But 
> if these spurs and bare areas are gone for good, I'm not sure what can do.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bill
> Lincoln, NE (zone 5)