If there are no traces I would rule out birds and squirrels. My bet is raccoon.

If you have a strong feeling the fruit disappeared in 1 day, I'd say it was human intervention. My avocado was stripped bare in November 1 year by someone who jumped my wall and took nearly 200 fruit. It was a waste as the fruit doesn't ripen till Feb.

Has to be human. What if any debris was there on the ground? Leaves, pieces of twig.
I would add the nursery workers to the suspect list.
It will take a camera to know.

Get a good game camera and add a surveillance camera in use sign.

Chances are your fruit picker was driving a nicer car than you.....

I can't imagine a human picking that many apples and carrying them away before they were ripe. Why would they want them? They would have needed to bring a container along, for one thing. My guess is squirrels or coons. Next year try some metal flashing around the tree trunks or some electric wires around the tree trunks on insulators. Northwoodswis

I reread your post. No debris tells me it was picked by a professional.
Not just a couple of kids.

Squirrels is my vote..

Squirrels can remove a lot of apples quickly without leaving a trace, but so can coons. People are most likely to leave a few.

Roofing coil stapled to the trunk and painted with motor oil thickened with axle grease (put them both in a closed container and shake it up) can stop critters from climbing the tree.

I don't believe any critter or group of critters is going to haul off 250 or so apples in one night and not leave one behind...except a human critter.

Once had a couple of people stop and shake down over a hundred apples off one of my heirloom trees and then pick 2 off the ground. I was watching with binoculars! They could have picked the 2 off the tree. I agree that a camera will catch the culprits.

I don't believe any critter or group of critters is going to haul off 250 or so apples in one night and not leave one behind...except a human critter.

Agree. People will take them too...and not think anything of it. It is so common (around here anyway) for loaded trees to simply go to waste. People are aware of this and think they are doing you a favor.
I've seen people with bags in hand circling under my plum tree and without question was about to load up. They weren't being sneaky or anything so I know that they thought it was ok. I went out and stood on my deck and when they seen me glaring they retreated back to their car. Had they just knocked on my door and asked I'd have given them a bag or so. It was a mother and two young children otherwise I'd have went down to have a "word" with them concerning respecting the property of others.

Amazing that people will walk up into someone's yard in broad daylight as if they were at a free PYO orchard.

Here in the Appalachians property rights are pretty well understood by people, so I suspect that if there are some here that think it might be ok, they are probably everywhere else as well.

also forgot to talk about this. do I need to to place a "under surveillance" sign if I put up a trail cam? whats the deal with that?

Its definitely not rats. I don't have any of them here. actually never seen on in my life. I don't think its raccoons because there was no broken branches and the tree is 10' tall. could be squirrels wouldn't rule thought out. except there was no shrapnel to be see. I did find 1 apple fully intact about 50' from the tree. that's all though.

could it be crows or ravens?

that's what a local commercial orchard near me told me it could be. and there is periodically a large flock that comes through in our area.

I feel like I would rule out humans because I have a 6' deer fence around the whole area locked with padlocks. and the apples were not ripe at all, no reason to grab them.

I do have a lot of squirrels but I find it hard to believe they could take out the whole tree in one day. I have seen like 4 or 5 is all..

thanks for all your in[put guys. keep it coming. I need to stop this.

I have bought a fake owl. and aluminum tape for the spring.

alittle confused about the roofing coil idea still. do you mean wrap a coil of nails around the base??

I've seen fruit ripped off by people plenty of times and animals more times. Only animals will take every single piece of fruit in my experience. People will leave ones that don't look so good or are hard to reach. Hell, I almost always leave a couple when I harvest my own fruit.

It's just an opinion.

My neighbors thieve apples. They reach as far as the can over a fence. Too bad Harry Masters Jersey is going into that location starting next spring --grafting already done last fall.

I can't speak about apples but a few years ago I had a lady ask my wife for peaches. I picked her 60 tree ripened beauties and left them by the tree for pickup. She came with her husband and took the 60 then stripped every peach they could reach off the tree!

I was in the house and came out and asked them to stop as the rest were not ripe enough by my standards and I already had others promised for peaches. I went inside and they still kept picking. I finally yelled from the window and eventually they left. They must have took about 150 peaches. They left me $5 for the fruit.

Sometimes fruit is just too tempting to people. Luckily I do not own a gun or I would be in jail for escorting them off my
property at gunpoint.

I believe I prefer to battle the squirrels any day than fruit stealing people. My motto now is to grow more than I can use to cover for these unfortunate issues.

sounds like it was a human.

I had squirrels clean about 100 I green peaches off my tree in one day. I now shoot any red squirrels I see in my yard and have had no more problems.

Actually, what amazes me about this string is that you were able to transplant a 30-year old tree and then have it produce apples the first year. Northwoodswis

Tree had so many fruit buds that turned to apples that it was hard for me to believe as well. but its true. I would post a pic or two but I don't know how to do that. (any help on how to post a pic would be great) I have a ton of squirrels here, so it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case. but how do I stop that? I have a 6' deer fence. that wouldn't stop them, I don't like shooting animals. I shot a robin with a BB gun when I was 8 years old and I felt awful. that's when it knew killing animals wasn't for me. how else can I keep them away?

You mention that the fence has padlocks. See: padlock shim

I suspect that your culprits are human.

Possible motive: Unripe apples are used for making pectin for jams and such. The pectin is also an emerging trendy superfood, especially for people who are prone to being outsmarted by their foods. Where does one acquire unripe apples though? I think this question answers why a person would rob a tree of unripe apples.

For a given recipe, the amount needed would be known beforehand. It would take many 2" apples.

I think that current culture and technology urges us to have a general purpose, outdoor recording camera system for any number of reasons. This is certainly one of those reasons. Good systems are affordable and easy to install, but a game camera is a good way to get started.

It is my understanding that in the USA, people do not have a legally enforceable expectation of privacy when outdoors or in their cars. If a neighbor's property is covered in frame of a camera, and no extraordinary measures were in place to attempt to gain privacy, it's not required to avert your camera's eye from recording parts of their property. What is specifically disallowed though, is recording anything inside their house without permission, even if it's clearly visible to you.

I have been told that in the UK, the expectation of privacy extends much further though, and of course, I'm not a law expert here, there, or anywhere.

Raccoons frequently do take 250 apples in one night here. They work as families of mom, dad, older babies and new babies. I picked a grain sack full of walnuts up one day and left them outside and a squirrel by himself stole 3/4 the sack in one night. Never underestimate either. People usually leave the hard to pick apples. Deer sometimes eat some of my apples and pears but never all of them.

It sounds like you have a good fence around it, have you considered getting a dog? If it is squirrels and they have to cross open ground to reach the trees a small jack Russell or rat terrier might do the trick. If it is raccoons , it might take a larger more aggressive dog. I have seen a raccoon whip an inexperienced 70 pound coon hound.

I know this is a pretty old thread but the same thing happened to me but with cherries. I live in eastern Washington and back in summer of 2016 nearly 30 trees full of cherries just disappeared in a night. We don't have any squirrels or anything of that sort, only birds. The weird thing was, there was no evidence on the ground or trees. Usually when a bird eats a cherry they will peck around the pit and the pit will stay on the tree connected with the stem. For a human to pick 30 cherry trees clean without leaving a single one would be incredibly difficult especially pie cherries which often come off the pit. There wasn't even any stems left on the trees.. After searching for 15-30 minutes I finally found just a single dried out cherry left on a tree. Also, we have another orchard a few acres away with cherries and they weren't affected at all. It's a really weird thing. This past summer of 2017 every thing was fine with the tree and we got a pretty good crop.

The same happen to us a few years. We had four trees full of apples. I just don't believe animals would not leave something on the ground. I've have opossums in my pear trees and birds in my grapes and peaches; they all leave uneaten fruit on the ground. These trees are rather tall too because they are not dwarf trees. I also found one apple hidden in the back of one of the trees. I have a fenced in yard and three dogs at the time (four now). These trees are in the back of my house.

I have four Japanese pear trees whose unripe fruit disappeared overnight here in the Hudson River Valley, New York. Plan to set up the camera this year, but would be nice to avert another loss. I have all of the suspects except humans - possums, raccoons, squirrels, birds. How do you deter a raccoon??