Does it look like I will be getting very little fruit this year? I have to squint just to see those few fruitlets. Looks like all the spurs are leaves only. And also on the end of 2 branches, the leaves are all curled and have dark brown/black blotches. I couldn’t get close enough to see if those are hundreds of bugs or what.
Those are aphids. Look on the underside of those leaves. If you don’t have many, just squish them with your fingers ( use gloves if you need to). Otherwise, people use soapy spray. It can be difficult for spray to reach those curled leaves, though.
The whole black/dark blotch is them…there’s that many on several leaves. Can I wrap the infested leaves with a bag and prune back that branch to get them all in one shot?
Aphid infestation is common in the spring. You can find out more here. And yes, you can trim off those leaves.
Thanks. And do you have any idea why there are so few fruits and only leaves on the spurs? My sister made heading cuts (we have no experience with fruit trees, tree left by previous owners) last summer because it was getting taller than we’d like. Would that be the reason?
Severe pruning could delay fruiting, yes. There are other factors when an apple tree does not produce. One common cause is biennialing. This happens when you don’t thin apple well (taking fruitlets offup to 70-80% so the tree won’t over spend its energy. Some varieties are more prone to biennialing than others.
Lack of pollination is another factor. Some people don’t know that an apple tree needs another apple varietyto cross pollinate. Lack of pollination can be caused by weather esp. when it is raining and cold during bloom time.
I don’t know enough about your tree to make a guess.
I have a similar proble., with my two honeycrisp trees. Three yr old trees…last year tbey blossomed, but cold snap killed off the blossoms. This year, lots of leaves, but no blossoms. Could they be gathering strength for next year? We have several apple trees on our 5 acres, so pollination osnt the problem. No speckled leaves, or bug activity, so far.
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Last year we moved into the house and inherited the tree (I believe it’s a granny smith) and didn’t know a bit about thinning fruits, etc. So all clusters were left to grow and harvested.
I did notice not many bees this year.
Would tangle foot help a bit with ants and aphids getting up the trunk and on the leaves?
Rosy Apple Aphids - they release a toxic substance that not only curls the leaves and deforms the fruit, in large numbers they can have a significant negative impact on tree growth.
Lady Bugs love them, but even large numbers of lady bugs were not able to control them on my trees.
“Systemic effect of the toxic saliva include reduced growth of roots and other woody tissue. Research at VPI&SU has shown that this can have an important impact on young trees as they develop a mature bearing structure.”
@Faygo
I love my beautiful honeycrisp trees but there is not an apple on them this year because thats the nature of honeycrisp. Once every 5 years or so i get a bumper crop and the rest of the time no apples or few apples. They are tempermental!
Honey Crisp has a strong tendency to go biennial. Only a few semi-dwarf rootstocks that HC may produce annually (I can’t recall the rootstocks). Otherwise, without serious thinning, your tree will enter the biennially cycle.
I’ve my HC tree for about 10-11 years now. It’s on an unknown rootstock (maybe M111). It took 5-6 years to produce a couple of clusters of flowers. Then, it started the biennialing cycle. On the year that I thinned fruitlets out hard (like 80% or more), it set fruit the following year. When I did not do a good job thinning, it goes biennial like this year.
Ants not only farm aphids, they attack aphid predators like lady bugs. Stopping ants from going up your trees can be helpful. However, DO NOT smear Tangled Foot right on the bark of the tree. It will hurt tree growth esp. young trees.
Wrap a tree trunk with a plastic sheet, corrugated paper, etc. Wrap it tightly so ants could not go under this sheet. Then, smear Tangled Foot on the material. You can take the material off at the end of the season. I do this early in the season (ants start early). I wrap all my fruit trees and smear with Tangled Foot around late April (I’m not zone 6 a) every year.
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I wish they had tanglefoot wraps. In sheets to cut as you need. I would buy that!