I am a newbie apple grower and I am still trying to understand their behavior. Early in the spring I was very excited to see a lot of fruiting spurs on most of my apple trees and thought I will be getting good crop on them. However, now that these spurs sprouted, they produced leaves only (except for a a few of them that produced flowers, mostly on G11). My apple trees (Evercrisp, Fuji, Hawkeye, Rubinette and Kidds Orangered) are mostly third leaf , they are trained to open center, with branches fairly horizontal, and they are on various stocks (B-9, M7, G11, G935 and M111). The only buds that seem to dependably produce flowers were the terminal buds on relatively long shoots (~2-3’), but most of these were pruned off because these shoots were thin and not expected to be able to support apples growing at their termini. Do apple spurs go through a vegetative growing phase where they grow for a year or two, before they start producing flower buds?
I know some of my rootsocks are not precocious, but I thought they would not produce the spurs in the first place.If the trees on M7 and M111 did not produce spurs/flowers for 4-5 years I would not have been surprised, but producing spurs that don’t flower is really what I am trying to understand.
Just hang on a year or 2…spurs are eventually going to have blossoms. And some varieties do bloom and bear fruits on tips of limbs. (Or some do both.)
Third leaf is rare for M7 or M111 to fruit. Seen it happen to a Liberty once, and to Niedzetzkyana.
Sounds like your question is “Should fruit spurs on apple trees immediately flower?”
"spur is a short shoot (4 inches or less) that only grows a very small amount each year. Spurs usually take 2 years to develop; that is, in the first year the bud is formed as either a lateral or terminal bud. If the bud is terminal, it may flower the next year or it may not. Lateral buds formed the first year may produce a flower, but the fruit that develops is small and of poor quality. More often, the lateral bud may thicken and grow only a small amount and develop as a spur, which may flower in the subsequent years.
The spur and terminal flower buds can have both vegetative and flower components. The buds usually produce about five to eight flowers and a similar number of leaves. Occasionally, a new vegetative shoot will develop after the flowers set fruit."
Those spurs will make flowers next year or the year after.
It has to do with the “hormonal” balance in the tree.
Your tree’s are likely still in their juvenile phase. And thus tend to produce leaves/shoots instead of flowers. In a few years they will switch to a mature phase, where a lot more energy is put into making flowers.
An advantage of them not profusely fruiting in their 3e leaf is that the framework will be stronger.
Tree’s that fruit to early can runt out. And have very thin branches that can’t properly support the weight of the fruit.
I have no source for it. But from my own experience if seen that branches/tree’s that grow shoots/leaves thicken up a lot more than those that are full of fruit.
if you want fruit fast, or next year. You could consider (lorrette) summer pruning. But i would just focus on the main framework until the tree’s naturally switch to maturity/fruiting.
@Ahmad: What I have heard & read most often when this question arises is, “Most apples will bloom first time in the fourth growing season after making the graft.”
Most.
Some are amazingly precocious & should be stripped so you get a tree before fruit happens. Some are “tardy to bear” & we must wait. At least you have grafted trees so you are likely looking at blooms developing or opening, depending on where you are. One of my trees is about to bloom this year for the first time & I hope to learn what apple it is. (Loose scion in a bag, the one of that batch to survive in 2019.)
Thanks for the input! Last year I ended up with about a dozen fruits in each of the Fuji (G11) and Rubinette (B9), and a couple on the Evercrisp (M7) and Kidd’s (G935). This year, all of these have many flower clusters all over.
My main disappointment is my third leaf Hawkeye (MM111), not because it didn’t produce any flowers yet, but because the tree is very slow growing; it is my smallest apple tree, about half the size of my Fuji and a third of the size of my Rubinette (both are fourth leaf). I am not sure if MM111 is slow growing, or Hawkeye is or voles are to be blamed (I discovered vole tunnels going to this tree both in 2023 and 2022. I poisoned the tunnels every time, but I discovered them in the fall, so the voles might have spent a considerable portion of the growing seasons feeding on its roots).
@Ahmad: MM111 is notorious for late onset of blooms. It can grow slowly until in the ground several years, so if it is healing where you can’t see the action, that probably explains why it is stunted. I’d give it a dose of compost all around this spring & mulch over that (but keep a couple inches next the trunk clear of it, so voles can’t sneak up to chew its bark at ground level).