This Golden Delicious is my only apple tree that looks like this at the base. The tree bears well and doesn’t seem to have any problems except for hail damage it got this year.
The tree is about 15 years old and has been like this as long as I can remember but was not like this when I planted it
Sometimes a graft will either undergrow or overgrow the root stock and that’s what this looks like to me. I doubt it will cause any problems.
Like @marknmt said it is a graft union. See this thread Napoleon’s army planted pear trees fact or fiction?
Most of my neighbors apple trees were like that. As they got taller and the trunk got bigger the bulging got bigger as well. I think it has something to do with the grafting part of the tree. His trees had plenty of fruit and never had issues with the bulging at all.
@Exmil …my CHE is grafted to osage orange.
Looks like this…
Growing great, producing fruit, happy, healthy.
