CN FORUMS ARCHIVE Telescope Reviews: Apple twig disease?

I'm not sure how old these trees are -- I suspect they're not all the same. The two apricots may be in their prime -- despite the lack of water for so long, they were barely touched by the borers and bore huge crops last year. They have a lot of buds on them this year as well. You know the story of the apples: four mature trees, two completely gone, and the other two heavily pruned and still struggling. I'll probably try to nurse them through this year and see what happens.

There's a small nectarine, it was hit pretty hard as well. I thought it was dead when we finally got the place, but it produced one blossom in the spring, and ended up putting on a lot of volume over the summer and fall. This year, the buds are ready to pop open, and there are a lot of them.

A cherry tree, little more than a stalk, I also assumed to be dead. But it put out several leaves, late, and then died. I found two borer holes in it, and broke it off to find the borers still living inside. But now, it's also putting out new shoots just above the graft mark, so if it doesn't get re-infested, it stands a decent chance.

A japanese plum produced 7 -- just 7 fruits last year. And it got bored pretty good as well. But this year, it lives up to what I predicted. It's already a dense, showy profusion of blossoms. No doubt it will have to be thinned dramatically, but it sure seems vigorous at the moment.

A pear tree appears to have sustained fairly slight damage, but it only grew two pears last year. It's buds are just starting to swell, but I feel pretty good about its health.

And a peach tree started out strong, but faded over the summer, and most of its peaches wilted and dried out just before ripening. It was the most heavily infested with borers after the apples. It's budding pretty well now, but I'm going to have to keep a close eye on it.

An almond is still pretty small, but the first time we saw the place it was producing nuts. Last year it blossomed, but didn't fruit. It has a few tunnels, and one small branch died, but overall seems to be doing well. Like the plum tree, it's blossoms are now spectacularly dense -- much more so than last spring.

Lastly, there was a prune-plum, still very small, that died, with a single borer-hole in the lower stalk. However, halfway through the summer, another shoot started growing up from the rootstock. I don't know what kind of root stock it was, and we're letting it grow out of curiosity. Even if it's not a fruiter, it should be interesting.

There were four other very small fruit trees in the group that died before we moved in, and I don't know what kind they were. We probably won't try to replace them till next year. For now, we have our hands full, but we're certainly enjoying the results!

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