Fruitless Fruit Trees – What happened?
 

The most common reason for failure to flower and produce fruit is that the tree is simply too young. Dwarf or semi-dwarf apple trees may start producing fruit in as few as three years or take twice that long or longer depending on cultivar. If your trees have been growing long enough, the lack of fruit probably has some other cause.

Frost damage to flower buds during the dormant season or after buds start to swell in the spring is a common cause of failure to fruit. Frequently an early warm-up will cause trees to break out of dormancy only to have their flowers zapped by a subsequent cold snap. Fertilizing late in the summer (after July 15^th) may prevent the tree from going into dormancy and make flower buds more susceptible to freezing temperatures later in the winter.

Browsing deer nibbling on fruit trees can damage or remove flower buds as high in the tree as they can reach. When deer populations are high and feeding pressure is heavy, repellents are ineffective and effective fencing is expensive.

Buds that survive to open into flowers must be pollinated to develop into fruits. Bad weather (cold and/or damp) that prevents bees and other pollinators from working can translate into poor pollination and little to no fruit development. With only a few trees the problem with pollination can be lack of another variety to serve as a pollen source.

Some fruit tree varieties are self-pollinating or self-fruitful. Some pears and tart cherries are self-pollinating. For many apple varieties if there isn't a pollen source, it doesn't matter whether the flowers survive -- pollination will not occur, and no fruit will develop.

Once trees start to produce fruit, they may produce large crops one year and little to no fruit the next. Thinning the crop during the heavy crop year may improve fruit set the following year. Heavy pruning after a light crop year may prevent a fruit overload the next year.

Other factors that affect fruit production include the early training and annual pruning of fruit trees to create a sturdy structure open to sunlight, proper fertilization, and pest and disease control.

Source: Janssen, D. Acreage & Small Farm Insights, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, August 2009, http://acreage.unl.edu

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