[borderowl]

Hello there!
Anybody know why I've had no fruit on my apple, cherry & plum trees this year? I think it was maybe down to the cold frosts last winter up here in the Borders, but I'm just a novice so don't really know!
Appreciate any thoughts?

[joyfull]

how old are the trees? are they in a very windy situation?

[borderowl]

I've no idea how old the trees are. The cherry trees, plum and bramley apple trees are quite big so they must be getting on a bit, but the howegate wonder and two eating apple trees seem not too old. It can get very windy here as we are in a valley next to a river. I had a good yield last year on all the trees and that was quite a bad winter too.

[BabbyAnn]

I had a good yield last year on all the trees

Sometimes trees go biennial - that is, do well one year, bad the next, good the following year.  My plum tree seems to have gone that way but is partly my fault ... I really should trim some of the fruit off so that hopefully it will be productive the following year.

that was quite a bad winter too

I don't think cold winters are the problem but what the weather was like in spring when the blossom was out.  Here in the midlands it was warm, sunny and dry and the bees were already out - perfect conditions for a good fruit set and an amazing crop this year.  If it was cold, wet and windy and insects were slow to emerge, then expect poor pollination and a reduced crop.

[Trillium]

Babbyann is right. Particularly if the blossoms came out when frost showed up. That's usually the crop gone for the year and no amount of bees will help.

If the weather is bad, the bees won't show up, and that will also kill the yearly crop. Hard winds can literally blow off blossoms and bees won't go to what is left. They really do need the petal 'signals' to find blossoms.

To keep the trees from going biennial as mentioned, do yearly prunings of the branches as well as doing some crop thinning so its not so stressful on the tree (which is why it needs a year to recover). I've been finding summer pruning more productive than winter pruning.

pReVULvggJE

[borderowl]

Thanks for the help. I actually pruned the apple trees back quite alot last winter as they were getting pretty wild. The old couple we bought the house from neglected them for a long time. See what happens next year!

[Trillium]

You can also over-prune trees and drain their strength for a year or two. The max recommended pruning per year is 25%.