Almost all my honey crisp apples have black round spots in one or more locations on the fruit that starts to rot the whole fruit. It starts as just a small back, round spot that slowly grows into an ever larger circle or circles. Eventually it rots in the circle and then the rot spreads to the rest of the fruit.
Also, it should be noted that a lot of the leaves on this tree have something wrong…instead of the healthy dark green color, many of the leaves get a faded, lighter green/yellowish tint, and also are a bit brittle.
The same thing happens to my Red Rome apples, though to a much less extent.
I sprayed copper an oil in dormancy, and sprayed Myclobutanyl and Captan together pre bloom and every 2-3 weeks since. So I’m sligjhtly doubtful this is CAR but I don’t know that at all.
The leaves on your Honeycrisp are typical looking for that variety, at least on what mine looked like and what others have told me. I took both my Honeycrisp trees out because I got tired of dealing with the non production of the trees and actually the discoloring of the leaves bothered me just as much. The Honeycrisp leaves looked deficient in some sort of mineral(s). I looked and looked trying to figure it out and found out that was what they look like for the most part. Even the the commercial growers say the leaves look like that. So out they came. I got maybe, maybe 6 apples off each tree at the most. Not every year mind you, some years. The other years the crop was less or non at all. A waste of space in my orchard. However, I never had any type of issues looking like yours do on your Honeycrisp tree.
I hope you figure out what that is/was.
Mike,
My HC is on an unknown rootstock but I suspected it’s M 111. It took 7 years to fruit and then skip a year. Turned out it is very prone to bi-ennialing. Once I realized that, I have tried to thin it early and aggressively. That helps but it is time consuming to keep removing flower cluster (before fruit set, even) to achieve this.
Last year it set lightly. This year it is loaded. I am behind on thinning and have a feeling that it will either go bi-ennialing or set very lightly next year.
When it is good, it is very good. However, we have a lot of rain including in the fall. HC tastes like juicy, crunchy nothing when it rains close to harvest. I threw them away as they tasted so diluted.
I don’t blame you for taking this variety out. I turned my into a multi grafted tree. I love Sun Crisp and many other on that tree now.
Yes, that is what I noticed as well as far as taste. It was a big crunchy nothing tasting when I did get some apples off of them. They were less than medium in size even though there were only 3-6 per tree. If I did get apples , just like you said, nothing the next year. Mine were on an M111. Not big trees by any means. The trees were just something I got tired of messing with. I debated grating over them but I think I just said " start from square one with no bad memories." I kept thinking if the other varieties did not do well on the rootstock I would blame the Honeycrisp for tainting the rootstcock. I know it probably would not happen but I wanted to make sure the rootstock and truck was not the issue or an contributing factor to the poor fruit production.
Thanks @MikeC and @mamuang for that information. Helpful and disappointing.
Mike, I don’t know what rootstock my HC is on, but when I get some, they are really good, unlike yours sound. Furthermore, they are VERY VERY large. My biggest apples, even when the tree has a fairly good load. I really don’t think its a mislabel because it ripens when HC should and looks just like photos of HC and tastes like those I find in stores. So I’m not sure why we have such different experiences.
Honeycrisp typically suffers from bitter pit, as pointed out by others,best thing you can do is over graft it with a better variety. That’s exactly what I did two years ago, so many other good varieties, this is a variety that only orchards prepared with skill to raise this apple can produce one fit to eat. So just top work the tree and move on.
I am glad your HC apples are very good and large as they should be. I am not sure what was the issues were with my HC here. It was frustrating to say the least. They had been in the ground for 10 years. I gave them plenty of time for a " well maybe next year" excuse. I had been frustrated with them for about 5 years. I should have taken out then but I was patient with them, probably too patient.
How old are your trees? My 3 trees are on B.118 and they don’t get any leaf issues, but the Japanese Beetles strip them. They’re 6 years old and haven’t set fruit yet and have only had a couple blossoms. They prefer a northern climate and I believe they begin to lose some of their issues with bitter pit as the trees age.
MY HC is about 10 years old and I honestly can’t remember if its had this leaf issue the whole time. I can say its had the rotten spots.
THanks for all the info everyone. Its extremely disappointing to me that HC is so problematic because I really like the taste even though some of you say you don’t. But I’m not going to work this hard for fruit that ends up mostly ruined in the end. Now where is that chainsaw?!?!
