Every other year we typically get a great apple harvest from our Gala tree. What you’re looking at is this year’s harvest, in a plastic bag in the trash can.
What happened? Well, probably a number of things, including less focus on the tree and the way we dealt with pests.
We usually do at least two of three things and get great harvests:
- We spray with Bacillus thuringiensis Kurstaki, or Btk (for winter moth and other caterpillars),
- We spray each apple with Surround (U Minn Extension sheet) to help ward off other insects,
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And on our most successful years we bag each apple, when it is around the size of a nickel or quarter, in a ped. (The shoe store nylon sock things.) The peds form a barrier that most insects cannot penetrate.
Even without the peds we usually get a very good harvest of 40+ lbs.
This year:
- I sprayed with Btk,
- I sprayed with Surround but didn’t do a great job and never got around to reapplying it,
- Never wrapped anything in peds.
What you see above and to the side is the result of my negligence
I’ve also been adding apples from our other (non-palatable) apple tree to our compost, and these apples may have had apple maggots in them.
Lessons learned? Well, I already know what works, I just didn’t do it this year, so I suppose the lesson is to do what I already know works. (I generally do.)
The really unfortunate part is that I need to wait another two years for a harvest. The saving grace is that we’re obviously blessed with dozens of excellent high quality orchards in the area.