We have an apricot tree which is about 15 years old. This year it was covered with fruit, but has since lost about 98%. Can you give me an explanation please? (We live in the Bay of Plenty Region).
Thanking you
Celia
- Celai asked 8 months ago
- last edited 8 months ago
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Hi Celia,
The tree could have dropped most of its fruit for a number of reasons.
Apricots often produce a lot of flowers, often more than can be pollinated, but occasionally they do all get pollinated and the tree ends up with much more fruit then it can handle. It causes stress on the tree and they then drop their fruit prematurely. It can help if you manually thin out the fruit on your tree to make sure this will not happen in the future.
We have also been having an extremely wet spring with all sorts of weather patterns across New Zealand and it is affecting many crops. It could possibly be this wet, soggy spring that is causing the fruit to drop early on your apricot tree.
Last, inspect the tree for any signs of fungal infection or disease. Diseases and infections can sometimes cause fruit drop. It may need a spray with a liquid copper.
All the best, and I hope you still get some fruit this year!
- Bec Wenzel answered 8 months ago
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