It is not possible to say with certainty what an apple variety is by looking at a picture of an immature fruit. It is often difficult to distinguish even among mature fruits. You can, however, get lots of guesses, and mine would be Golden Delicious, based on the frequency with which it is planted and the general appearance of the apple you show. The tree habit is also consistent with GD, but you can't take that to the bank either. Maybe when the apples are mature you can get a better idea by the taste.

I don't see many apples on that tree, indicating it did not blossom much or was poorly pollinated. I would prune that tree right now, removing many of the crowded interior branches entirely, beginning with the largest, and also those lower branches hanging out the side. I would also head back the remaining branches by a foot or so. Summer pruning encourages the formation of fruiting wood, which may improve your blossom population next season.

That's a young, vigorous tree, and has a good future if it gets some pruning now. Avoid pruning in the dormant season, which encourages leafy, succulent growth the following season, and lots of watersprouts.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

It looks to me like your apple has a decent case of Sooty Blotch and Fly Speck. These are common summertime diseases that often go together. The good thing about these 2 diseases is that they're mostly just cosmetic and limited to the skin. Additionally, once the apple is ripe, a good scrub with a scouring pad with remove 95% of it.

There are fungicides that will prevent SB & FS, but I'm not currently doing that. I have far worse diseases to spray for (Cedar Apple Rust, Apple Scab, and others), but the bagging of the apples that I do seems to limit my SB & FS problem. Any that still does get on there is easy to wash off. Do a search here on bagging of apples to see if that will work for you.

Hope this helps...

-Glenn

I don't see the benefit of pruning such a small tree right now and cutting back branches does not speed up fruiting- it delays it in my opinion. The point of that would be to encourage secondary branching, which may be useful if the tree is in fact GD and branches apper to you to be growing too lanky.

I say wait until winter to prune and then do everthing Don suggests short of cutting back the branches- just thin them for now and select the most upright one to be a center (central leader) to create a tree with a single trunk with smaller branches coming off it.

Summer pruning reduces the vigor of a tree more than winter and I think you will need to get that tree a lot bigger before you want to reduce vigor.

If you need info on training to specific shapes google Cornell Fruit Info and you'll save all of us a lot of time typing less organized how to's.

As far as the sooty blotch and fly speck, you can expect those most every year if you don't want to do a ridiculous amount of spraying all summer long. They are tasteless and harmless and as mentioned, possible to wipe off- at least enough to make the apples presentable.

I don't see that many apples. If you're concerned about the fruit that's there bag them with ziplocks. Information can be found by searching the forum.

I am an advocate of pruning when the sheers are sharp- just not small trees that I'm trying to size up quickly. I make an exception with peach trees and Japanese plums just because they are so freaken vigorous.

One of the most common ways all over the world to get free standing (non-dwarf) apples to fruit quickly is just to remove all branches more than a third the diameter of the trunk at the point of attachment and to leave everything else until the tree starts fruiting. You maintain a straight trunk right to the top.

When you cut back a scaffold branch you always delay fruiting- it is the branches that come off of them that you can sometimes manipulate to greater fruitfulness by careful summer pruning.

Some varieties, however, need to have their scaffolds headed back about a third of last seasons growth to encourage more secondary branching even though it delays fruiting. Until you see this as a problem- don't bother heading them back.

I make my living establishing and maintaining thousands of fruit trees- the majority being apples, and have never met or heard of anyone who's spent as much time pruning and training apples as I have.

Of course that still doesn't necessarily mean that I do a better job than Don but Don prunes for himself only (I believe). My customers are very impatient to get their fruit so I've worked very hard to get them fruit as soon as possible while building a strong tree.