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Why does an apple tree drop unripe apples: to save the harvest, you need to know the reason
24.07.2024 21:43
If unripe fruits start falling from an apple tree for no apparent reason, this should alert any summer resident.
To stop the “apple fall”, the first thing to do is to find the reason why the tree is behaving this way.
Pests
Perhaps the main factor that can lead to massive fruit shedding is the dominance of pests, in particular, the codling moth.
The fight against the codling moth begins long before the harvest - in the spring, when the garden should be treated with insecticides.
Moniliosis
If you notice brown spots on apples that increase in size over time and turn into circles with fungal spores, this is a sign of moniliosis.
Copper sulfate is used for treatment, and prevention involves spraying trees with a 3% Bordeaux mixture in early spring, and a few days before flowering - with a 1% solution of the same Bordeaux mixture.
Lack of moisture and nutrition
To prevent apples from falling off, trees should be watered rarely but generously.
And to prevent a deficiency of one or another nutrient, you can use top dressing with a complex mineral fertilizer with a high nitrogen content, which should be applied before mid-summer.
From the second half of summer and in autumn, switch to fertilizers, the main elements of which are phosphorus and potassium.
