We have several young fruit and nut trees that flowered this year but we failed to get anything out of them. Is there something beneficial I can do to all the trees this fall and then next year treat them for their individual needs?

Kathy :-)

-- Kathy (DavidWH6@juno.com), August 24, 2000

Answers

Perhaps you are lacking bees. My mother found it impossible to get fruit from a couple of trees that she had in her yard. She was surrounded by large farms that were in corn rotation and apparently the insecticides have killed off the wild bees.

The other possible cause could be a frost during the bloom that killed the fruit.

Good luck Tami in WI

-- Tami Bowser (windridg@chorus.net), August 25, 2000.

We have five new ones that we put in this spring. There were a number of flowers, but the crop looks like it's going to be one peach, total. I think the trees were just too young to be serious about producing this year, and frankly I'm glad. I'd rather have their energy going toward building a strong root system at this point. Our older trees didn't produce the first year or two that we had them, and the first year they did begin to produce, crops were very small. As they have gotten older, crops have gotten larger. Our oldest trees were bare-root four years ago, to give you a time reference. I bet just good, basic tree care and time will solve the problem.

-- Laura Jensen (lauraj@seedlaw.com), August 25, 2000.

I think maturity is a biggie. Our fruit trees didn't bear for 3 years after they started blooming. On the nut trees, I was told by a professional nurseryman that pecans have sexes and that you need to mix them 2 of one sex , one of the other. Sorry, I can't recall which sex need to be 2.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), August 25, 2000.

I don't know either, Jay, but when I've seen recommendations for different sexes, it's always more females than males. Just like with the livestock, I guess!

-- Joy Froelich (dragnfly@chorus.net), August 26, 2000.