What causes mis-shaped apple fruit?

Fruit shape is affected by many factors.  Mis-shapen fruit can result from insect or disease damage.  Tarnished plant bug and plum curculio attack very young fruit.  When that fruit matures, it often develops abnormally. 

Probably, one of the most common causes of mis-shapen fruit is the development of seeds within the fruit.  If seed development is dispersed around the core of the apple, usually the fruit will develop well and symmetrically.  If the seeds develop only on one side of …

What causes internal breakdown of apple fruit?

 

Internal browning is a low-temperature storage disorder of certain apple cultivars which develops in some fruit stored at or just below freezing.  A cross section of an apple typically shows affected tissues to be brown and firm and usually radiating out from the core. Occasionally, the browning may be confined only to the core or the core area can be normal and browning is in the outer layers.  Firm fruit allows the diagnosis of internal browning from the other internal …

Why did my apple trees bloom heavily but only set a few fruit?

There are several possibilities why apple trees bloom but fail to set fruit:

  1. Apples are not self-fertile and need another apple tree or tree(s) of another different variety (or varieties) so the flowers can be pollinated (by bees, see #2.) and set fruit.
  2. Apple flowers rely on bees to carry the pollen from one variety to another so the flower(s) can be pollinated and the fruit can set and begin to grow. Both domestic honeybees and wild pollinators (bees, wasps)

How many fruit should my apple tree bear each year?

 

Apple trees often set more fruit then they can adequately support. When a tree has too many fruit, the fruit tend to be small, poorly colored, and may have low sugar levels. Limb breakage may also result from over-cropping. In general, large trees can support more fruit then small trees, therefore the ideal number of fruit per tree varies with tree size. The number of fruit per tree can be based on the circumference of the trunk. To determine trunk

Disease Management in Apple Trees and Fruit