3 year old Granny Smith keeps dropping blossoms

General Fruit Growing
#1

2 years in a row, is this normal?

#2

Not happening on my young GS, for what it’s worth.

#3

I assume you have other varieties blooming at the same time for pollination? Petal drop without setting fruit is either a cold weather event or lack of pollination. Pollinators working when the tree was in bloom?

#4

I have no pollinators, I read somewhere GS was self fertile. Apparently not!

#5

It is not self pollinating as far as I know, but to top that off I believe it is also a triploid. You can double check on that, but you will need to plant two other varieties if that is the case. Otherwise whatever you plant for a pollinator will not set fruit while the Granny Smith does!

#6

Thank you!
Am I likely to be in for a lifetime of heavy spraying with this tree? I live in a pretty humid pest heavy area. I don’t mind bagging fruit (pretty nice bags are available here).

#7

Well I might need to eat my words as I did a quick search and a few sources do claim it to be self fertile and I dont see any mention of it being triploid. Regardless blooms with no fruit set are a result of a lack of pollination …

#8

Granny Smith is usually described as a self-fertile diploid. In regard to pests: mine does seem to be a bit of an aphid magnet here on the Northern California coast, but I’ve no other issues to report.