[answerguy8]

I've owned my property for over ten years now and this was a year of discovery for me, a discovery of apple trees! From day one there were a few that were obvious because they were large and growing in the open. But this year I found at least a dozen apple trees that I didn't previously know about.

How did I miss them before?

The main reason I missed them before was that they were all growing in over-grown areas and didn't really stand out amongst the rest of the scrub growth on my property.

Why did they get discovered this year?

I did discover some of them in the spring when I spotted their flowers blooming. But most were discovered this fall because they had apples hanging from their branches! Apples that I'm sure were never there in past years.

So, one of my winter projects is to clear out brush from around these trees to give them more sunlight in the future.

I've also noticed that most apple trees growing around this area are loaded with apples this year, what was it about this year's weather that made for a bumber crop of apples?

 

[wyle_e_coyote]

I noticed that the wild, or abandond apples trees are loaded around us also. Must have been the good spring we had.

Rmember that not only do apple trees provide a good food source for wildlife, but in the spring, look for Morrels growing under them !!!

 

[mike hartges]

I'm not sure what made it such a good year for apples but I noticed the same thing on our Hillsdale county property. This was the best year for apples that I have seen since we've owned our land and that has been 12 years. Even our wild apple trees produced good sized apples and lots of them.

 

[nyls]

All I can say is that here in Upstate NY we have had a bumper crop of every kind of mast. I mainly attribute it to a very productive growing season before the drought set in later in the summer.

Dave
NYS Southern Tier
Steuben County

 

[Backwoods-Savage]

Wild apple trees will produce a lot like oaks produce acorns. About every 7th year, there will be a bumper crop.

How do you get those wild apple trees? The absolute best way is to run those apples through an animal, like perhaps a deer, or even run those seeds through a bird. The seeds seem to need this in order to germinate. So don't waste time trying to plant apple seeds from the ones you eat. Hum. Perhaps this might be a good arguement for those who bait with apples....