i had my apple tree pruned this year - in March. Is this the reason for the lack of fruit on it this summer?

Answer 1

March is too late the sap is already rising, Nov. Dec. Jan.
ok.
Autumn is too early as the wood is still soft and could invite
infection, so Old know all; you don't.

Answer 2

March is the best time to prune your trees. Make sure you prune before the buds start to grow. You may have pruned to much away. The apples are formed on the branches that grew the year before. Also an apple tree will skip a year and rest if you made it work to hard the year before. Thin the trees crop every year to get big apples and to get a crop every year.

Answer 3

Could be. Apples need to be pruned in a specific way to encourage fruiting. There's a summer prune and a winter prune. Most apples (althought not all!!) carry their fruit on little 'spurs' on the older branches, and it's these you want to develop. Cut them off, and the fruit goes with them.

A good book on how to do this properly is "The Fruit Garden Displayed" - published by the Royal Horticultural Society. Explaining it here in words would frighten you off weilding the seceteurs, but it's not hard, and this book shows exactly how to do it.

Answer 4

I'm not sure about the time frame, as it mostly depends on where you live. If your tree was already starting to bud when you pruned it, that could explain the problem.
Often it depends on how you prune it. If you prune the branches that are growing up, it will produce more fruit. It forces the tree to put it growing in expanding side ways and in fruit.

Answer 5

I pruned my apple trees in MARCH (I have 24 trees-and at least 6 different cultivars). My limbs on some of the trees have split because they're so heavy with fruit. The problem, most likely, is that some types of cultivars fruit heavily every other year. Last year I hardly had any on 3/4 of my trees. As long a you prune before they bud out, you're okay. Just wait til next year!

Answer 6

I had a cooking apple tree which bore fruit every year, I never pruned it. The eating apple tree I had only bore fruit every second year.

Answer 7

Yes, you should prune it late autumn as soon as you have picked the crop. In March, the new wood that carries the fruit is already growing. If you cut this off, you'll get no fruit.

Answer 8

There is an old wives tale that goes 'Prune your fruit tree in March and you'll be buying your fruit from Tesco in September' or something like that

Answer 9

Yes, apple trees should be mid-summer pruned or very early spring-Jan/Feb or both. I prune both times.

Answer 10

must be, I got tons of fruit this year, more than ever b 4