Repeated Frost Problems?

[Elkaddict]

We purchased our property 3 years ago so I have that history with fruit production. We have approximately 150 Apple trees on our place, most of which I'd call wild. In the 3 years, we've had a very heavy production one year on nearly all the trees, about 1/3 that the following year, and nearly nothing this year (I looked at 20 trees this week before finding a single Apple). We are in a pocket of mountains that routinely has colder temps than areas even a mile away. My assumption is we've just had late frosts that killed the blossoms. I'm assuming no amount of pruning or releasing the trees would make a material difference. Is this correct? Am I missing something? Seeing this wild swing in production has made it difficult to get excited about spending time/$ on new plantings or pruning and releasing a bunch of trees. Thoughts?

 

[Turkey Creek]

You are likely right about the frost pocket. You might try to try to find some scions of later blooming varieties to graft onto existing trees and experiment with that.

 

[wklman]

Could be your trees have biennial bearing tendencies (bears every other year). You could try thinning some apples off your trees on years they have heavy loads so they produce more every year.