During late summer our renters loaded up our small apple orchard with horse manure. That year we had a ridiculous number of apples, however, this summer, we've had practically no fruit. We are thinking it was too much manure, as the trees look very healthy this year but produced little or no fruit. What can or should I do for the next growing season?
You are correct — too much manure made your trees outproduce themselves. Had you thinned the fruit by about 50% in 2018, you would have had a reasonable amount of fruit this year.
Compost and apple trees
Each year you can add compost to the area around the trees, 2–4 shovelfuls if you feel the trees lack nutrients. As time goes on, compost (made up of leaves, wood, greens), but not necessarily manure, is good for your trees. Manure is full of nitrogen and makes most plants flourish with greenery and more limbs. Some composted manure mixed with the leaves/greens compost is fine.
Thinning apple trees
Each year you should take about half of a large production of apples off the tree. Give each apple about 6 inches on the limb.
Some trees produce 4–5 apples altogether (in a bunch), and taking 4 of the 5 apples off often takes all the apples off that section. In this case, try to leave solo apples. Thinning early before the apples are over 2 inches makes it easier to leave one apple attached. As the apples grow to about 2–4 inches, some of the apples will die off naturally, leaving one robust apple.
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