we have apple trees that were here when we moved in 5yrs ago.We never got even one apple good enough to eat.I did spray with dormant oil (is that a big mistake ?) it gets up my nose even with a mask.Please help me save these trees.I never want to spray with anything again,but I don't know what to do. Apple pie anyone?????

John, David, Rob?

This seems to be up your alley-

I know that we always hung mason jars filled with a molasses/water mixture in our apple trees when I was growing up, but I don't remember what kind of pest it attracted and then drowned.At least this will get the thread back up to the top-

There are a number of things that could cause your apple problems, and I recommend finding a good book about caring for them. I like the Rodale book, Garden Answers. If your trees are overgrown, or improperly pruned, that can add to the problem. Dormant oil shouldn't affect the tree's production if sprayed when the tree is dormant. If you spray oil when leaves are out, the solution must be more dilute. The oil suffocates overwintering pests/eggs. Sounds like you may have worms (when you open an apple, see anything creature-like inside?) Or you may have something else, depends on what the apples look like. Gotta be more specific.

Littlefrog. It sounds like you have 'black rot' or 'white rot'. It's a fungal disease. Gardens alive has a fungicidal soap called Soapshield. It is environmentally friendly, the inert ingredients are water, gums and food-grade emulsifier,and of course copper. I recommend to start a spraying schedule with this according to the directions for apples. I mix this right with my 'surround' when i spray. I spray with it in early spring before the leaves immerge, at green cluster stage, once in mid summer, and once again in late Fall after the leaves have fallen. Also it's very important to keep leaves and dead fruit cleaned up under the tree.Make a weekly or daily habit of removing any dropped fruit, and rake up and remove all dropped leaves and twigs, because if it's left there, the next spring the rain will cause the spores to release and re-infect the tree.

Apple trees need a lot of attention to produce decent apples. They must be pruned properly in the late winter (too late to do it now, don't attempt) than sprayed with dormant oil (yes even organic apples get this treatment) than you start alternating fungicides with pestcides, spraying at least once a week. And yes there are organic sprays out there. for fungicides you use lime sulfur, bordeaux, sulfur. for pesticides use surround, Bt, soap sprays, sticky traps and be sure to pick up every single apple that drops off the tree. Also be sure to pick up all leaves that fall as they just spread various diseases back to the tree.

The best book on the subject is The Apple Grower by Michael Phillips. The Rodale Problem Solver does cover a bit about apples and has an okay spray program but The Apple Grower goes to much much greater depth-the author has been orcharding for most of his life.

With organic apples expect about 30 to 50% to be bad. Use them for apple sauce, cider or pies. Expect another 30% to look unperfect but will be absolutely wonderful to bite into. if you want your apples to look like the ones in the stores you will have to spray expensive toxic chemicals several times a week to get them.

I have often wondered why apples are sold so cheaply when it costs so much to raise an acre of them (the chems alone run over $2000 per acre, than there is the labor for pruning, picking and keeping the trees sprayed)

Thank you all for the apple info. I don't care if my apples are not very pretty,as long as they are good to eat.It's too late for me to spray with dormant oil. Anyway I hated doing that last year(it got right up my nose). I was looking for an easy fix, I really should know better.Anyway I removed all the mulch around the trees,and removed any little bits that looked funny, (funny weird not funny Ha Ha).I will be more diligent about removing fallen apples, and hope for the best.I did take off a little bit with a hard black 'stuff'around it ,I didnt see any more of this.I'll let you know if I get any decent apples.The pool is right next to the trees,thats another reason I didnt want to spray.Thanx again