Question about large trees not blooming

General Fruit Growing
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I have an issue with some of my large fruit trees not blooming and wanted to ask folks on here who might be able explain why.

While I have been on this forum I have read a lot about that to induce fruit trees to start fruiting sooner was to pull down branches to near horizontal positions. This is supposed to tame the vegetative growth some and force the tree into fruiting.

I have two quite large trees, a Winesap apple and Pineapple pear. The apple is about 12ft tall and the pear is about 15ft high. Last year to get the trees to start blooming, I pulled down a lot of the branches. While they all aren’t at 90 degree angles to the trunk, they are maybe 70 to 90 degrees.

The Winesap is a tree I bought from Lowe’s, so i don’t know what the rootstock is. The label said 'semi-dwarf", so it could be anything, but I suspect it’s an M7, as it suckers from the rootstock. The pear is on a Callery rootstock.

Fast forward to now, where various other of my trees are blooming, but these two are not. The ones that are blooming are much smaller and have some of their branches pulled down, but a lot do not. There are a few trees that have blooms on the tips on vertical branches, like Liberty and Suncrisp, but nowhere else on the trees. Others have blossoms high up on the central leader and nowhere else. Almost all of these trees were planted in spring of '16, so they are now 4th leaf trees. A few are 3rd leaf trees.

I have a theory on why these two big trees are not behaving like I thought they should. They both have really vigorous central leaders which have never been topped other than when they were planted 3 years ago. Could it be that the trees are putting most of their energy in pushing these leaders skyward, and not any into making fruit, despite lower branches being pulled down?

If this is true, do these really high leaders need to be headed back to take away some of this vigor (maybe this is what is called apical dominance)? I have read about less aggressive ways of doing this so that there isn’t an explosive response of waterspouts. Specifically, drop-crotch pruning, which doesn’t just lopp off the central leader anywhere, but to an area just above a thinner near-vertical branch further down the leader, and letting that branch become the main leader, but now at a much lower level. Or maybe this is called a modified-central leader. Either way, is this something to be considered?

I realize some trees, like pears especially, just take their time to set fruit, so maybe I’m being impatient? But, I also don’t want a really tall tree that I’ll never be able to reach, even with a ladder.

I appreciate your responses.

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I would not do any branch thinning until the third week in June ( summer solstice). By then all the tree’s sap that supposed to be in the upper part of the tree is there.When you trim everything you need back it will not have the reserve of sap in the root system to push out more branches. If that makes sense. Trimming a huge amount in the winter only makes the tree push out more branches using the sap stored during the winter. Then see if the tree produces any blossoms next year. Has it ever produced any blossoms while you have had them?
There is also another method of getting more branches out lower in the tree. I will see if I can find that video. Interesting information. Plus it does seem to work, IMO.

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Thanks for the reply. That’s what I’ve been reading, do the pruning in the summer to prevent a bunch of watersprouting that would result from doing it in late winter.

Neither tree has bloomed since they were planted in '16. But, when I was out there yesterday evening, I did see one bloom high up on the trunk of the Winesap, and another on a higher branch. But, still nothing on the lower branches that have been pulled down. The Pineapple pear is flush with new leaves, but still no blooms. My other pears are done blooming, so it’d be too late anyway if it did now.

There has been discussions on here about that, mostly about notching a small cut into the bark above a bud on the trunk. I guess that causes the energy to be forced into that bud to form a new scaffold. I haven’t done that on these trees, as they have plenty of branches, but I have/will do that on some of my other trees which don’t have a lot of branches.

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My oldest apple trees were planted in 2013 and are on EMLA7. I got a few apples in 2016 but they really started producing in 2017. Rootstock can play a role in the precociousness of a tree, I don’t have any experience with callery for pears, but EMLA7 has been pretty precocious for me.

Limb bending to more horizontal can also induce earlier fruiting. Branches that are more vertical are usually more vigorous, and pears in particular are notorious for wanting to grow vertical. Also notching below a bud is suppose to make it become a fruit bud but I have not tried that.

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I have many apple trees going on year five that haven’t bloomed yet. Give them time. Mine are mostly on standard Antonova rootstock or B118. Just enjoy your berries and the apples you do get.

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Thanks. The Winesap may be an M7 tree, but I don’t have any proof of that other than the rootstock sends up suckers like my other M7 trees. I have a Pristine and King David on M7, planted the same year as the Winesap, they are both maybe 6-7ft tall now with good branching. The Pristine has a few blossoms for the first time this year, the KD does not.

I have three G30 trees and they are really vigorous growers. My Zestar is two years in the ground, and has really taken off. It has a couple blooms high on its trunk, but none on the lower branches.

Yeah, it’s funny I have an Orient pear that I’ve not done a good job of pulling down its branches, and it put out a lot of blossoms on those upright scaffolds! Some of those have already started to set tiny little fruitlets. This tree is 18ft from the big pear tree and is the same age, but has been much less vigorous, maybe 7ft tall.

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Yeah, I may be being impatient. But I thought planting these trees on semi-dwarf and dwarf rootstocks would mean fruit sooner. We will get some apples, just not a lot.

We should have a good crop of those this year for sure. My strawberries seemed to have recovered from their deer pruning, and have really started to bloom heavily. Some have already set some quarter inch sized berries already, so we might get some before Memorial Day.

Blackberries are starting leaf out, but not blooming yet, I expect that to start in about a month. Raspberries are more leafed out, I’d think they would be blooming soon. Their canes aren’t as big as the blackberries, but have sent up a bunch of small primocanes.

One of the gooseberries has a lot of little fruit buds on it already, should be a good crop on that plant.

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Was out checking things out today and noticed there were about 4 blooms now on the Winesap, so it hasn’t been totally quieted this year. Perhaps it’s just taking its time waking up.

My Pristine apple overnight popped out a string of new blossoms, which is odd, as it had put out a couple about three weeks ago and I thought that was it.

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You planted them in 2016, not that long ago. Although rootstocks play a part in how precocious a tree can be, varieties also contributed to it. Some varieties take longer time to fruit. There is a thread discussing just that.

My HC on an unknown “semi-dwarf” roostock took a long time to produce. It must have been 2-3 years old when I bought it. It took another 5 years to set 3 clusters of blooms and skipped a year before it would set a decent crop, a total of at least 7 years in ground for that “semi-dwarf”.

Not all Semi-dwarf and dwarf rootstocks behave the same way. I’ll say be patient. Your trees are only 3 years in ground. It is not uncommon that they have not settled down to produce.

https://extension.psu.edu/apple-rootstocks-capabilities-and-limitations

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Bob,

My father has somewhere between 14 to 18 apple trees that he planted on the “farm” (not a farm - 40 acre play toy) between 5 to 9 years ago. We have more apple trees but they are less than 5 years old. Some of the trees have grown well others have stunted in our hard VA clay. My father has grafted many varieties onto the larger trees. Almost all of the trees came from Lowes with a few exceptions. We have gotten zero apples and we are lucky if two of the trees have a small bloom set. I have tried everything I could think of - pulling the limbs down, heavy fertilizing, not fertilizing, heavy pruning, not pruning - nothing works. I do not understand why we have such a hard time with apples. At my house I dug up three this year that did not look promising that were on MM106. I am lucky to get one or two clusters of blooms. My only success has been on an unknown “green” variety that came from Walmart and a Williams Pride on G.41. A Sundance bought at the same time on G.935 has never bloomed. I have an Arkansas Black on B118 - same story as MM106 - one or two clusters of blooms. It is a mystery to me why the trees never bloom or have one or two clusters - the ones at my fathers farm are old enough to have full sets of blooms. - Spud

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I don’t know how big your trees are, or what it’s like growing stuff in clay, but have you considered distressing the trees by beating on the trunk with a chain or hammer, or even removing a ring of bark and replacing it upside down?

Strange but true, these things are said to work. I’ve seen minor success on my pear where I inadvertently choked a branch when I failed to remove twine, and I’m trying it now on different branches on that same pear to see how it responds.

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12

Well, apple trees have what could be called a juvinal(vegetative)stage during which they just want to grow .
And should be encouraged to do so, with nitrogen fertilize .
To get then bigger than a deer can destroy, and develope a good framework to support the fruit crop.
I try to make this time about 3 yrs.
After this time , assuming the tree has developed sufficient size. It’s a matter of slowing it down, so it will bloom / fruit.
The length of shoot growth being a good indicator , of vegetative VS. reproductive stage. To encourage fruiting shoot growth should be about 1ft. Or so. Per year.
Heavy nitrogen ,heavy dormant season pruning , can cause the tree to have too much shoot growth, and stay juvinal longer.
Conversely “, summer” pruning can help reduce vigor , encourage reproductive growth.
So only "dormant " pruneing the minimum to maintain the framework.
And little to none ,fertilizer will help, slow it down. ( bloom)
Some varietys / rootstocks can be slow to fruit.
5 years is when many begin blooming , some longer.
So patience is in order.
Someone here ,recommended leaning a axe against such late blooming trees,to get their attention ! Might work .?

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I have a number of trees planted in 2014 that haven’t bloomed yet. Sooner or later they will, I assume.

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