Find out why apples crack and rot on an apple tree
Keeping a healthy garden is a person's hard work, multiplied by knowledge. A living tree is just as susceptible to disease as we are. Only a person can complain, go to the doctor, and the orchard will silently wait for help. Decay of fruits, proliferating insects and the condition of the bark will be a signal of the weakening of vitality. An attentive gardener will determine why apples are cracking on an apple tree at the first signs and will not allow deep damage.
How to get a good harvest
Why healthy apples fall
The tree needs help, supply it with food, and prevent diseases. Therefore, it is necessary to follow agricultural techniques. It consists in nourishing the tree properly and protecting it. If at the beginning of spring and during the first two months of summer, the tree is regularly fed with organic and mineral nitrogen fertilizers after two weeks, the fruit is poured, and the question of why apples fall off the apple tree in the first period never arises.
A healthy apple tree bears as much fruit as it has enough nutrition from fertilizing, moisture from watering and the energy of light.
In the future, a poured apple will need to create the same taste that a green young apple does not have. Therefore, from the first days of August, the composition of the dressings changes. Now the tree needs a lot of potassium and superphosphate... These substances serve as food for the tree in the autumn, increasing its winter hardiness. They also contribute to the assimilation of the biological form of substances and the creation of amino acids, enzymes that make the apple ruddy, tasty, aromatic. By feeding the tree, we expect from it a large harvest of delicious juicy apples.
Watering the apple tree during fruiting is of great importance. Not getting enough moisture, in order to preserve itself, the tree draws liquid from the fruit, which can wrinkle and fall off. Therefore, the regular watering garden during fruiting is required. But the roots need oxygen, and if it rains for weeks, the soil is saturated with moisture, the discharge of apples is also possible. Under these conditions, aeration of the soil is required, saturation with air by deep loosening of the trunk circle. It is not difficult to carry out these activities, and the question of why the fruits are crumbling from the apple trees will never bother a caring summer resident.
Diseases that lead to a decrease in yield
Any disease of the fruit tree leads to loss of yield at all stages. Each disease contributes. Often, diseases and pests work closely together. Therefore, it is important to maintain a garden in compliance with the map of agrotechnical measures at the recommended time.
To maintain a healthy garden, it is necessary to carry out treatment and prevention against diseases and pests at the time recommended in the area.
Why do apples rot on an apple tree and is it possible to defeat the disease? It is fruit rot or moniliosis that has affected the fruit.The disease is fungal, multiplies by spores, hibernates in the mycelium in the ground and on plant debris. A great danger is posed by unharvested rotten fruits left in the garden in autumn. The next year, there will be a new contamination from the overwintered remains. The gardener is required to thoroughly clean and disinfect the garden after harvesting.
Apple moniliosis spreads:
- in humid warm weather;
- settles on damaged fruits;
- transfers to healthy fruits when touched.
In order for rot not to take away most of the crop, it is required to carry out fungicidal treatments of the garden in two weeks, wetting each twig. Systemic drugs permitted for use in subsidiary farms are Skor, Topaz, Fundazol, Hom. They also act on other diseases associated with apple spoilage, for example, scab, a harbinger of moniliosis. Therefore, when treating with fungicides at the same time there is a fight with scab on an apple tree... Any copper-based preparations will become effective, but their use during fruiting is undesirable. Copper preparations are used in the spring.
Is developing apple moniliosis, starting with the formation of apples the size of a walnut. It is then, during the first molt, the moth caterpillar makes a hole in the apple peel and the spore penetrates deep into the fruit, which grows into the mycelium and destroys the apple. First, brown spots appear, then a gray mold-like coating. These are new disputes ready to be implemented. If there is contact with another fruit, then infection will occur and the rot will continue.
This can happen on a tree before harvesting or when storing fruits in winter conditions. Some varieties, especially winter and sour ones, are weakly susceptible to rot, since they have a thick peel and a dense waxy layer that protects the fruit from infection.
Fruit rot is the result of prior damage to the skin by a pest, hail, or a predisposition of the variety, due to its thin skin, to infection through touch.
The control of pests that damage fruits and are precursors to the emergence of moniliosis remains an integral part of agrotechnical measures. All kinds of traps and spraying apple trees from pests in the summer are a prerequisite for maintaining a healthy garden. Therefore, measures to combat the moth at the same time serve to protect the health of the fruit.
To the question of why apples crack on an apple tree, an answer was received, which once again confirmed that the manifestation of any disease lies in complex causes. Cracking of an apple is possible if its supply of nutrition continues and the skin is not elastic enough. It is known that the scab acts on parts of the plant so that they stop growing. The incoming nutrients break the skin and the fruit cracks.
But there are physiological reasons. After a long drought, heavy rains started. The roots drove the juices in large quantities, and the already hardened skin could not withstand the internal pressure. Why the apples cracked on an apple tree that is not sick with anything is clear in this case. It was necessary to organize watering in drought and cover the root circle with mulch so that a sharp change in humidity did not occur.
The tendency to cracking is greater in fruits with a rough skin. In addition, it is impossible to keep the harvest of ripe fruits on the tree for a long time. They can crack and rot too.
Output
In order not to be left without a harvest of apples, it is required to carry out the following measures to preserve the garden throughout the season.
- Autumn collection of all plant residues and their destruction by burning. Clean the bark, treat and whitewash trees with special paint. Dig up the trunk circles.
- In the spring, repairs should be made to the crown and trunks of trees before sap flow begins. Spray with a strong urea solution.Treat the green cone with copper-containing preparations for fungal diseases.
- After flowering the garden, carry out protective treatments every two weeks, combining treatments against fungal diseases and against insects. Do not forget to feed and water the plants in time.
All that remains is to follow the recommendations given in this article in order to preserve the harvest of your garden and please your family with delicious fruits.