Help Pollinating Mature Apple Tree

General Fruit Growing
1

Hello
I am new to this forum but looking for some help on getting my old apple tree to produce fruit again. The tree is about 30 years old, originally planted with 2 others. This is the only remaining apple tree in the stand so the last few years it has stopped producing fruit. Additionally it caught fire about 3 years ago and killed half the trunk. Looking at it now, it’s basically half a tree, fairly lopsided but still looks fairly healthy in the summers. My question is, how long would it take if I were to plant a couple 5 foot pot apple trees near it before it starts to bear fruit again. Strangely enough, last year it produced one apple. Not sure how it happened as I’m sure there isn’t another apple tree for at least a mile or two.

Thanks

2

Bloom overlap timing is important. Do you know what the variety is? Golden delicious is one of the best pollinators. You might try to graft a branch of another apple tree on to pollinate yours.

3

I don’t know what kind the mature tree is. I have read that the golden delicious is a pollinator of many varieties so I was planing that. Are you saying I could graft a golden delicious onto the existing tree and it may pollinate itself?
Thanks for your help.

4

Is your old apple still flowering? If you plant your new trees on a dwarfing root stock they could be producing in as little as 2 years. You could plant a ornamental crabapple if you are primarily interested in just a pollinator. You need cross pollination to get your old tree to produce any meaningful amount of fruit.

5

Yes it does flower and yes my main interest is getting that tree pollinated again. I don’t have a lot of space near that tree so if your saying an ornamental crabapple would pollinate it, then thats likely what I will do.If I did plant a ornamental crabapple in a few weeks would it be able to pollinate the old tree this year?

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6

Depends on the age of the crabapple, many of the ornamental varieties bloom at a fairly young age.

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7

So when a tree blooms it also releases its pollen at the same time?

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8

TurkeyCreekTrees is correct on the ornamental crabapples you likely could buy one in bloom and bring it home to pollinate yours. You may want to start planning / planting a few apples in preparation to replace that big tree one of these days since it sound like it has a few issues. You might want to either graft them yourself or have someone graft the same apple you’re growing now to several rootstocks before anything happens to it.

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