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Wed, Jun 12, 13 at 21:03
| This is the 3rd year in the ground for my apricot tree and it has been doing very well, lots of blossoms turning into (very) small apricot fruit. I was looking forward to a decent harvest when one day... they were all gone! My wife thinks the birds got them, while I thought they only went for ripe fruit, not tiny unripe green babies. Anybody had a similar experience? If birds, what's the solution, netting? |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| They dropped off, probably because they weren't pollinated or the tree wasn't up to supporting them. This is normal. |
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- Posted by CharlieBoring 7 (My Page) on Thu, Jun 13, 13 at 13:58
| Yes, ltilton is correct. Apricots often require a second variety to get good fruit set. One of my trees died and this year all of my fruit dropped off. If you can't plant another apricot tree, consider grafting another variety onto your tree. |
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| Well, the fruit actually set, so I don't see how pollination can be the issue; however, they disappeared at a very young stage, when they were 1/4" diameter at the most and totally green. |
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| Usually the issue is frost. Anything below 28F after bloom and the fruit can be lost. 24F and usually they are all lost.They shrivel up and fall off. |
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- Posted by franktank232 z5 WI (My Page) on Thu, Jun 13, 13 at 15:12
| Apricots at this stage, even in my temperate rainforest climate (at least this year), should be the size of a quarter...if you are in zone 6, they should be even larger... If they were that small, there is something going... Sometimes trees just drop fruit. My Hunza apricot dropped probably 95% of its fruit so far...it had great pollination, and the fruit were growing, but it just dropped them anyways...weather, age of the tree, who knows... |
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| So I gather nobody thinks the birds (or any other form of wildlife) are the culprits? |
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| It took four years for my Harglow apricot to hold onto four apricots. For three seemingly long years I watched the small quarter inch baby apricots drop. The tree was just too immature to hold fruit. I did plant two new apricots of different varieties for pollination (even thought both varieties are supposed to be self-fertile). Nope, don't think its your birds. Mrs. G |
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| My plum trees did the same thing. They were completely covered with pea sized plums then a week later they all fell off. My tree is still only a couple years old so I think it is too young to hold them. |
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| You know the idea of fruit dropping off young trees is not something I ever recall seeing except in the year of planting. Maybe it has something to do with weather. We get more sun here than many areas. If my second year or older trees bloom they hold the fruit as well as mature trees. |
This post was edited by fruitnut on Fri, Jun 14, 13 at 11:55
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| Fruitnut I believe you are probably right! We get more rain, fog and cloudly days. Fog is not great for to fruit trees. |
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| "You know the idea of fruit dropping off young trees is not something I ever recall seeing except in the year of planting. Maybe it has something to do with weather. " That was probably the problem with mine. We had a lot of late freezes this year. The plums put on very early this year. |
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| "You know the idea of fruit dropping off young trees is not something I ever recall seeing except in the year of planting. Maybe it has something to do with weather. " That was probably the problem with mine. We had a lot of late freezes this year. The plums put on very early this year. |
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