Can my decades-old apple tree produce edible fruit?
The apple tree in question (I don't know what variety) came with the house and looks like it may've been there first. It's at least 20 feet high and has about a dozen trunks; I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me it was a hundred years old. It's a beast! It does flower and fruit in the fall, but the apples are small (about 3" diameter) and are usually eaten by wasps and deer before I even have time to think about harvesting them. What can I do to make the fruit suitable for human consumption? Is this even possible with a tree this old? I am in zone 4b.
Answers ( 2 )
I lived in Western Washington, outside of Olympia, for nearly twelve years; the last five were spent on the farm property of our local Fire Chief and his wife, and there were pear trees, a couple of peach trees, fig trees and a half dozen or so apple trees- these latter were all ancient, and they all bore edible fruit.
Chief would grumble every winter about how they should have been cut down long ago, but he never made a move to cut them down, and when a limb or three would come crashing down during the winter storms, my husband and I would go out and help buck up the wood for burning. The fruit these trees gave was smallish, and an excellent cooking apple; in fall, Chief would drag out the orchard ladders and up we'd all go, harvesting the good ones and holding back the bad ones for cattle treats.
If you do not want to put the work into the tree you have, then cut it down and try a variety more to your taste- like Chief's, your tree is likely a cooking apple- good for pies and apple sauce- not for eating out of hand. And the work you have to do is get to the apples before the wasps or deer.
You can net the bottom tree limbs as far up as possible, which will help with the deer, but the wasps are another problem and not one easily solved other than to get to the fruit before they do. This means not allowing the fruit to ripen to peak sweetness- it is the scent of that high fructose that is bringing in the wasps. You will need to keep a good eye on the fruit as it ripens, and plan on spending a day or two harvesting what you want; home-made applesauce is a whole lot of work to make, but if you like apple sauce, it is worth it, the rest you can store in the cool of a cellar for use in pies. The other use is apple cider, which can be turned into apple jack, which is a wonderful something to sip on frosty cold nights.
But, again, if you do not want to put all that work into the crop, then you should take the tree down, and plant one more to your taste. And if you do that, you might want to consider saving a few dozen good-sized chunks of the wood for smoking meats come next summer- applewood is a delicious flavor with which to smoke.
Good luck making your choice!
The average lifespan of an apple tree is closer to 100 years, with between 30 and 40 of those years being fruitful.
Yes, it is possible to make the fruit suitable for human consumption. A tree that is reasonably structurally sound may be renovated and brought back into production.
Renovation is best done in early spring. If water sprout growth can be found in the lower areas of the tree, remove all the old, large limbs about 8 to 12 inches above this new growth. Undercut these large limbs slightly before removing them so that they do not tear the bark severely when they fall. The old limbs will generally be large and heavy. Be careful that they do not break off the shoots you intend to leave when they fall to the ground. When making the severe cuts on old limbs, try to cut them perpendicular to the ground. Cuts that face upward will collect and hold water from rainfall, causing ice damage in winter and decay in summer. Paint these large cuts with white outdoor latex paint within a few days to protect the wound from the weather. Outdoor white latex paint is not toxic to the tree and seals moisture out, preventing decay.
Making the major limb cuts will generally remove a significant portion of the old tree. The root system will produce much new top growth the first season, so avoid fertilizing the tree the first season after cutting. Trim back the shoots left on the main cut limbs so that new growth will be forced outward.
During the second growing season after the severe pruning, new growth will again occur.
In April of the third growing season, many of the new shoots produced during the second growing season should be thinned out, leaving only the most desirable limbs chosen earlier. The limbs left should also be tipped again to promote more lateral rather than upright growth. Generally, a small crop of fruit is produced the third year.
The new tree structure produced using this pruning method will generally result in a tree 12 to 15 feet tall, or about half the height of the original tree. All the growth on this new tree will produce good crops of large, high quality fruit. The reduced tree size will also make the tree much easier to spray and manage.
Each succeeding spring, remove some limbs and thin the growth on permanent limbs to prevent the tree from getting too thick. The shading that will result from underpinning will reduce fruit production and cause weak growth in the inner portions of the tree.