It's Apple-ing Now Sir, But Why?

For the second year running I have experienced the querky phenomenon of autumn apple blossom and fruit.While this is far less of a problem than coddling moth or the icy massacre of a hail storm, autumn bud break (as I call it) has the potential to reduce the following year's yield not to mention confuse the bees. If I wanted to be irritating, I would name it "bi-anneal bearing" which is both a per-existing apple tree condition and a confusing measurement of time if you think hard enough about it. The activity occurs at the tips of the new growth with clusters of flowers followed by bunches of abnormal, elongated, Chernobyl-style fruit. The fruit never gets past acorn size and hangs on the tree until you pull them off and hock them at something. Why does it happen? No definitive answer so far with the internet being, as always, useless. As everyone knows, true gardening wisdom is only contained in mouldy old books that nobody owns. My strongest suspicion is climate, to be specific an unusually long 'Indian Summer' we had this year. Perhaps as Summer rolls on and on the trees decide to skip winter and get on with spring. The other suspects are rainfall and fertilizer. The last few years have produced excessive autumn rainfall and I may well have provided excess late Summer feeding. The only one of these factors that I can influence is fertilizing so next year there will be a test. I will feed some of the apples in late Summer and skip others and then we'll see. At the moment it's nothing more than a botanical oddity as the growth that blooms prematurely is almost always pruned back. However when the trees are properly established it may occur on the delicately nurtured fruiting spurs wasting the following years potential crop. I will continue searching for answers.

 

Deformed Corryong Pippins

Autumn Summer Strawberry's

The Best Apple I've Ever Tasted

This single apple has indisputably wiped the floor with every other apple grown this year and delivered on all the hype and media buzz surrounding the famed Bramley's Seedling. This lone apple survived coddling moth, sunburn, pigeons and wierd alien fungus to mature into a plump, spotty and asymmetrical example of this legendary cooking apple. I vowed to myself that my first successfully grown Bramley would be stewed and served (still warm) over ice-cream. I kept my vow. As a result of this whole experience, my second Bramley tree, currently on the front nature strip, will be relocated to the orchard next to it's older sibling. Community gardening just got less communal.

 

Having just one specimen makes scientific photography a little more difficult. I tried to capture it from all necessary angles and in all it's grandeur before the processing began. I was relieved to find no evidence of watercore or a coddling moth tunnel when I sectioned it.

While I was dicing away at this moster I took the opportunity to judge the Bramley as an eating apple. It was a truly exceptional apple to eat raw. The flavour is difficult to describe, the sensation is acid to begin with but there is an underlying sweetness. The texture was crisp with a high water content. This apple makes the Granny Smith taste like a fake plastic apple! The stewing process was a bit of guess work. I had about 200g of fruit to which I added 2 teaspoons of caster sugar and 6 teaspoons of water.

Malteser Syndrome

I have to say I'm almost numb now to the countless mysterious horrors presented to me when I walk through the apple orchard at the moment. This one however was just horrific enough to stir me. I think I'll call it the Malteser syndrome, firstly because I've got no idea so far as to what it really is and secondly for wholly obvious reasons. The damage is limited to the Summer Strawberry which continues to accept the brunt of natures boot this year and is limited to only five or six of the fruit. My sole suspicion so far is that its got something to do with the vicious 40 degree day we had about a week ago. Leaves were burnt and feelings hurt in the wake of that stinker and the sun-facing feature of these big brown spots is a dead giveaway. From the cross-section, the damage appears to be superficial but I can't see an apple recovering from this.

R.I.P. Bramulator

Nature can be cruel, very cruel. And survival of the fittest is often replaced by the random lottery of disease and death. Such was the fate of my most promising Bramley apple, the Bramulator. After a day of record temperatures for November, apparently, I was watering in the evening only to find that the Bramulator had had its ass handed to it by a strange and disfiguring wound developing on its side. My heart sank, I had become very attached to this little guy and was looking forward to pulverising him in a blender and making apple sauce. As of yet I haven't identified the condition however it looks quite distinctive and I went to the effort of documenting it scientifically before I laid the Bramulator to rest. In years to come there will be so many apples (I hope) that this level of individual coveting will be impractical. But for now I will continue to honor this apple that gave its life to further the cause of apple disease research. Your death will not have been in vain, you would have been delicious.

Codling Larvae Sighted.

Careful probing of one of the Summer Strawberry apples today confirmed my suspicions and dampened my spirits about getting a good crop this year. This is the Codling Moth larvae, alive and well and starting is journey to the center of the apple. This sighting was enough to send me to Bunnings, as if i needed an excuse, to seek protecting for the remaining unmolested fruit. I went with Yates Dipel which is a less toxic bacteria based insecticide. It may be too little too late but at least I can say I tried damn it!

What Now!?!?!?

As far as graden maladies go I've been fairly blessed really, but this season has delivered some unique first-time challenges. Just as I'm reeling from the recent outbreak of the Apple Mosaic Virus, today I've discovered something just as unsightly and potentially much more destructive. My best guess so far is that I'm dealing with the Codling Moth. So far the only activity is on the Summer Strawberry which is bad enough but I am dreading the appearance of these onomous wounds on my other trees, particularly my coveted Bramley. As with the Mosaic virus I'm trying to be philosophical about the whole thing. An early crop lost means supsequent, larger crops will be better protected. I'm also finding that changes in weather from season to season seem to be influential in which pests are active. Last year was constantly wet and swarming with aphids, this year is substantially drier and who knows what horrors will come next. Anyway, let the power of macro photography take you into the perverted world of the Codling Moth.

 The first sign is this wierd saw dust stuff or 'frass' that activates disappointment.

 Once cleared away there is a shallow crater with a tiny hole.

 Sectioning this apple revealled a similarly shallow cavern. I couldn't find any kind of grub after poking around suggesting these might be Codling Moth 'stings'. That's where the grub starts eating and then stops for some reason and hopefully dies.

So many of the Summer Strawberry apples are affected I lost count!

Bramulator

Apple Progress Report

A post only really suited to the extreme apple nerds. As I've got at least five varieties fruiting for the first time this year, I thought it necessary to chart their progress with excruciating detail. Every variety flowers and fruits its own way. Some varieties bloom profusely while others struggle to flower at all. Some bolt out of the gate with spring while others are compelled to get up late, like me. They also all start to show of their unique appearances from day one with some red ripe while only the size of marbles. The following is an early snapshot of all the fruits that will appear this year.

This is the Bramley. Only a couple of fruits this year, maybe just one. A very characteristic shape, kind of looks like a naval mine. These emerge from huge, bold flowers, quite late in spring.

First fruiting year for the Calville Blanc. Like the Bramley it is a triploid so at least two other varieties are necessary for pollination. I have oodles. Really measly little flowers which appear late like the Bramley.

First fruit from the Corryong Pippin. No surprise as this is the infamous 'mop-graft' with its body builders root system. The fruit are a perfect bright green and will ripen to deep yellow with a slight red blush.

The Snow Apple has some nice clusters of fruit this year, even if it does have an apple STD.

Summer Strawberry way the star performer last year and the only tree to produce respectable, edible fruit. This year is shaping up to be even better.

The Crofton is the earliest apple I've got. It has the first blossom and its fruit is already almost twenty cent piece size.

The Sturmer is another late bloomer but a respectable first crop.

This is the Bonza graft growing like mad on the Sturmer. Amazingly it hast two fruit that I can't bring myself to remove. Their weight may become a problem for the integrity of the graft so I'm cooking up a way to support them, probably something excessive.