Wow. Good to hear Maiden Blush is doing well for you there. It dies if you look at it wrong here. Catching everything.
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Certain birds also prefer the holes to be facing certain directions
Swallows prefer and east or southeast hole
Unless you have a dominant strong wind direction that isnāt coming from the west or Northwest, then place the hole opposite that direction
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Most of my trees produce annual crops, but the crops are heavier on some years and some varieties. A couple trees took the year off last year (Thompkins King and Egremont Russet). A couple different trees took off the year before. I wasnāt keeping great notes previously, but it now occurs to me that the trees that set zero fruit had flowers, but also had heavy fungal pressure early (anthracnose). One year we had a late frost and had very little fruit on the northeast side of some trees, which donāt get good sun where I live.
It helps to thin young fruit early and well, to at least no more than one per cluster, and maybe even no more than one every 4-5ā on a brace, or even fewer if the branch is small. Thinning also helps reduce pests and increase spray and sunshine penetration, so not only do you get more fruit, but the fruit is also better.
Itās not intuitive, but thinning fruit definitely gives you more fruit in the long run.
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No.
I have read/heard my Baldwin tree will likely be biennial no matter what is done. But I wanted the classic that was the competitor of Shockley in itās day.
Shockley is annual. But it has a ton of size variations from small to large. Some of our FB Shockley growers get a lot of large apples.
If you have a good location ā¦ deer protectionā¦ you might experiment with espellar training.. and rootstock like Bud9.
I have a Novamac on b9 trained espellarā¦ and with those limbs strapped down in horizontal position it produces so many fruit spurs each year that I have to thin them.
I started one on M7 out in my orchardā¦ and they are both 3 seasons old.. just starting season 4.
The one on M7 produced blossoms last fall after summer pruning. I should get some fruit from it this season.
The one on B9 trained espellar.. produced a good crop the last two years. In year 1 it bloomed.. but I removed the blossoms.
More dwarfing rootstocks and espellar training.. sure seems to encourage fruiting.
I have my Novamac on B9 planted in a half whiskey barrelā¦ And located on the south wall of my homeā¦ Near our HVAC system.. no critters, deer, squirrels, etc.. have bothered it at all so far.
TNHunter
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You didnāt say much about how you care for the apples, so Iām gonna run through some items that have affected my trees:
- Pollination. You need different pollinators, apple varieties with overlapping bloom periods. If blooms on pollinator trees are damaged or far, pollination can fail.
- Insect control. Various bugs will destroy your crop. In particular, some caterpillars will eat all the flower buds and blossoms.
- Cooperative weather. Late freezes can destroy buds and young fruit. I havenāt had this problem here but a buddy in VT loses his crop in half the years.
- Thinning. As noted above, in a decent year some trees will set too much fruit. That tends to exhaust its resources so the next crop is poor. Thinning heavy crops helps even out crops and also improves fruit quality.
p.s. I should add that the vast majority of my trees produce a decent crop every year. White Jersey seems to be an exception. But I get very consistent crops from names like Rox Russet, Enterprise, Liberty, Winesap, Redfree, Redfield, Egremont Russet, Centennial, Puget Spice, Redbyrd Bitter.
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Do you have a picture? I want to try this and got some B.9 rootstock this year. Would love to see how yours is trained.
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yes i would like see it?
When it arrived.. it was damaged in shipment. It was a nice tall 5 ft whip.. but the top 2 ft had been broken.
So.. I pruned it off just below the break and planted it in a half whisky barrel planter.
It grew 4 nice branches that first season and a nice central leader. I simply bent those branches and strapped them down to some raspberry stakes.
Not how espellar is normally done I expect but it worked.
I eventually pruned that central leader off and now keep it about as tall as the rest of the growth on the top two limbs.
I prune it 2 times each year.. late winterā¦ and mid August I summer prune it.
After summer pruning it last august.. in Septā¦ found this.
It has grafts of trailman crab and pristine added to it nowā¦ Novamac, trailman and pristine are all in FG4.
The trailman graft produced one nice little apple last year.. delicious.. the graft was just added last spring.
It is a little bigger than that now.. but not much. Has been relocated right next to my house at the bottom of a tall brick wall, south sideā¦ all day sun.
This is what the novamac apples look like.
Very nice flavor and texture and a nice blend of tart and sweet.
TNHunter
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Waitā¦ I just remembered you said you had gone through 12 varieties in 17 years. Forgive me if you already answered this, but does that mean youāve pulled some out and replace them? Could it be some of them are too young for their combination of scion and rootstock? Because a vigorous, precocious scion on a dwarf rootstock will produce on a very different timetable than a slow to bear or light bearing variety on a semi dwarf or standard. And even when they start bearing, some of the latter might give you very few apples before they take off.
I also remembered I have two on Bud 9 that have never produced a single apple, and they were grafted in 2019. Theyāre about 5ā tall, and fairly slender. They both get too much shade. One is Grenandine. Donāt remember what the other is.
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@LarisaLeeā¦ I have had several varieties of apples die here of fire blight.
For most of them it happens a year or two after they start blooming.
Back around 2002 I planted Red delicious with my original Early Mc treeā¦. it died of FB in year 3 or 4 when it started blooming good.
I planted another variety Fujiā¦ and again in year 3 or 4.. it died of FB.. once it started blooming good. Next I called and talked to Starks to get their recommendation for a variety that could survive FB and pollinate with my Early Mcā¦ the guy there recommended Mcintosh Freeā¦ which I tried but it was no good.. in 5 or 6 years it never bloomed and it was weak looking, smallish overall with small diameter limbs.
I eventually just took it out.
My original Early Mc was producing fruit in year 5 or 6.. with no pollinator right next to it.
My backyard crab apple blooms with Early Mc.. and was obviously pollinating it.. it is located 70 yards away.
After the Mc Free was removed.. I quit trying other varieties for a while.
In 2020.. after researching disease resistent apples at One Green Worldā¦ I planted a Gold Rush, Hudson Golden Gem and Akane.
Those were all on their disease resistent apple list.
Again.. in year 3 4 5.. they started blooming good.. and the FB showed up. Around year 3 Gold Rush was already blooming and it is a FG3 tree.. all blossoms the last half of its bloom had FB and either removed the fruit spur or part of the branch it was on.
In year 4 and 5 Akane and HGG started blooming after summer pruning ā¦ and we had one if our warm wet springs.. every fruit spur with blossoms and many limb tips had FB. Same for Gold Rush again but even worse this time.
I tried pruning all the FB out but it had already made it into scaffold branches and main trunk in some cases. Very frustratingā¦ when you see that. I ended up taking those 3 trees out.
My NovaMac.. which is rated VRā¦ Very Resistent to FB.. (per Purdue)ā¦and in FG4ā¦ again.. got FB in many blossoms and a few limb tips in year 2ā¦ when it started blooming good. I cut the affected fruit spurs off flush with the branch and removed wood where it had obviously gone deeper. I ended up loosing the two lower scaffold branches .. only parts of the top 2 remained.
Late in April or early May the FB finally stopped showing up. I think it was 8 or 10 blossom sets that remained..and they set and ripened fruitā¦ the tree grew and recovered well.. grew back most of the missing scaffold branches.
I summer pruned and it developed more fruit spursā¦
The next spring ā¦ last spring ā¦ it starts blooming around April 1ā¦and again FB shows up mostly just in blossom clustersā¦ which I removed the fruit spurs for.
I did not lose any parts of the 4 scaffold branches.. just a few.. probably a dozen or so fruit spurs.
FB last year seemed much less severe than the year before. We got a other small crop of very nice apples from it.
My hope is that Novamac will build up more and more resistance to FB over the years and become one of the few here that survives long term and fruits well.
PS.. I had the same problems and went thru as many varieties with pears here.
TNHunter
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Oh, sorry. I was replying to OP @Zone6, who wasnāt getting a reasonable crop, brainstorming about potential reasons. I should have put the @Zone6 in my reply.
I do remember you @TNHunter had pulled out apples and replaced them with persimmons, which seem to be performing astonishingly well. And I am no fruit expert and hope I didnāt sound like I thought I was one. I have about given up on stone fruit after wasting a lot of money and time on them. But I am also rather stubborn and may un-give-up in the future, and then come on here to act like I am surprised my 60th bajillion attemp to grow Japanese plums and peaches failed. 
American Persimmons grow like weeds here. But the leaves and fruit are always covered with blotches and black spots. Sort of why I do not bother with Persimmons. They are not very appetizing in appearance at all.
@LarisaLee .. I tried Jplums here in the pastā¦. They lived 13 & 14 years then both died.
We got 1 good crop from them ā¦ and a couple very small crops. They both bloomed so early.. mid to late Feb.. and got toasted by frost almost every year.
3 years agoā¦ I decides to try Jplums againā¦ after getting recommendations on varieties here.
The first spring my little AU Rosa set 100 tiny plumsā¦ then we got a mid March frost that wiped them out.
The next two springsā¦ exactly the sameā¦ bloom nicely, set fruit.. then frost wipes them all out.
I have grafted like 10 or 11 other varieties on the two original treesā¦ attempting to find the latest blooming and most frost hardy jplums.
Alderman was my latest bloomer last yearā¦ Superior was just a few days ahead of it
My original tree AU Rosa is the first to bloomā¦and I am working on replacing most of it with the later bloomers.
Hopefully some year we donāt get a hard frost after mid Marchā¦ and my late bloomers produce a crop.
TNHunter
My apple trees are wildcrafted aka left alone. I may prune issues with them such as a branch that crosses, but that is it.
That is terrible. Are you going to try crabs? I will try a few crabs this spring. I picked out the best of the crabs for fresh eating.
I let them go. Iāve lost some from weather and just dying. But many are / were oldish and just never produced much.
@Zone6 ā¦ I have added grafts of chestnut and trailman to my (Early Mc and Novamac on M7) out in my orchard.
My Novamac on B9 espellar.. has grafts of trailman and pristine on it.
I am getting some more chestnut and trailman via trades now that I will add this spring.. to my trees and to a crab at my daughters home.
I am getting some Centennial crab scions via trade .. so I will be trying those out too.
TNHunter