We have three apple trees in our yard, two Honeycrisp that we planted several years ago and one Havenotgotacluewhatitis that’s been on the property since time immemorial. The mystery apple tree produces a few apples every year, consistently lumpy, diseased, and pest-ridden. One of the Honeycrisps produces a few apples every year, quite tasty. The other one has been producing a metric ton of apples each of the last few years. That’s only a slight exaggeration.
Last fall, it produced so many apples that the branches started drooping. And it seems to be reshaping the tree, but not in a good bonsai kind of way. After last year’s harvest, the branches didn’t spring back to being happy branches, they continued to sulk over the winter. And this spring they were still bent downwards. That’s just wrong. Use DuckDuckGo to search for pictures of Honeycrisp trees. None of them will look like this:
And it’s not even fall yet. What, if anything, am I doing wrong? Should I maybe pick some of the apples off the tree before they’re mature just to reduce the weight on the branches, and let the other apples grow to full maturity for fall harvest? Try using cordage or wire to reshape the growth of branches, or at least to hold them up? Say what the heck and let it grow in its own weird manner since it is after all a good producer and that’s all that we should care about?
