This is an even-numbered year, which for me means there are no apples on our local trees. How is that? Old apple trees without much human attention will grow into an every-other-year fruiting strategy. In a given year, there may be a hard frost right in the middle of blossom stage, and all the buds will die off, leaving few, if any, apples on the tree. This generally affects all the apple trees in an area, at the same time. That summer, with no pollinated fruits to pump full of juice, the roots of the old apple will have plenty of energy to create more fruit buds for the following year. As the next spring arrives, the old tree will have a brilliant display of blossoms, which the bees will be very happy to have. If the attending human fails to climb up in the tree and knock off half of the blossoms, or to knock off half of the tiny fruits soon after pollination, then the tree will have a full load of fruits to inflate that summer, and will have little energy left to create fruit buds for the following year, when there will be few, if any blossoms at all.
Since I have been brewing champagne cider, this pattern has been the norm for all the old apple trees in our valley, which are now on an odd-numbered-year fruiting cycle. When I can get to a tree in time and thin the blossoms or the fruit, then I get an every-year crop of fewer, but larger apples.
This year, there was too little fruit to bother picking, so I bought cider wholesale from Big B's Cider Mill in Hotchkiss CO. After offering the discount to the Homebrewers Club, I bought 60 gallons for 12 brewers, including me, and we'll all compare results this winter, as our brewing efforts bear fruit.
MT
