Aren’t fruit trees supposed to bloom in spring? Then why do some of mine have flowers here in October?
My pluot trees have a few flowers (those on Flavor King pictured above). Also with a few flowers are my Pink Lady apple, Fan-stil pear, and Blenheim apricot.
Why the off-season bloom?
Apparently, a period of high heat or lack of water can cause this. This past September and early October we had lots of heat, you’ll remember. On September 5 and 6, my yard reached 115 and 114 degrees. There were a few days over 100 again in the middle of September. Then at the end of the month there were eight consecutive days of 100 degrees or higher from September 28 through October 5. What an end to summer!
It was in early October that I noticed the first flowers opening on the Pink Lady apple tree. Then I looked around and noticed blossoms on the others as well.
I’ve seen this pattern before. After the extreme heat of July 6-8, 2018, some of these same trees had an off bloom. Here is the same Pink Lady apple on July 23, 2018:
(Side note: Some apple varieties that we grow in Southern California, such as Anna, commonly have multiple blooms throughout the year. I haven’t noticed that these blooms are clearly related to heat or water stress.)
High heat or lack of water?
Was it high heat that caused the off bloom, or was it insufficient watering during the high heat? I don’t know.
Stress from lack of water has been shown to cause a bloom on many citrus trees once the stress is relieved. (See this paper, for example.) And I’ve experienced this myself.
Back in 2013, I moved into my current house and the yard had a mandarin tree. It was July, but the tree hadn’t been irrigated all spring and early summer. I watered it and it immediately responded with new leaf growth and a profusion of flowers, in the middle of summer.
On the other hand, none of my citrus trees have flowers right now (except a lime, which has a flower or two almost every day of the year). But I watered my citrus trees abundantly through the end of this summer, much more in volume and frequency compared to my stones and pomes that are now having the off bloom.
Maybe the citrus aren’t blooming because they didn’t experience as much stress during the heat since they had more water given to them. I have to confess that I probably underwatered my stone and pome fruit trees this summer, as judged by how they look today (not so good).
Will I get off-season fruit?
For the trees with flowers, what will happen next? Will I get some off-season apples, pluots, apricots, and pears? I don’t expect so since the flowers are few and some, such as the pluots, need cross pollination.
Further, in The Home Orchard it is written: “A fall bloom does not result in fruit or nut production.”
But I can say it’s certain for my blueberries. A couple of them bloomed after the heat too, and the berries rapidly grew and are soon to turn color. I just may garnish something with a couple fresh blueberries from the yard this Thanksgiving.
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Hi Greg
What about avocado trees? I have a youngish Pinkerton that is starting to bloom now. It did bloom early in the first year (starting in early Jan I believe), but the second year it bloomed from Mar-Apr. Is it stress related or just normal variation? Also, what about the prospects for fruit set at this time? It is carrying one fruit from the most recent bloom cycle. The fruit is fairly large now, but I don’t anticipate it being ready for another few months. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Jon
Hi Jon,
I should have made a mention of avocados. No, I’ve never noticed nor heard of avocados blooming in response to high heat or water stress (once the stress is relieved). But the bloom of avocados can be influenced by other stresses, such as by girdling.
Pinkerton is one variety that can bloom very early naturally, every year, if it’s in the right environment. For more on Pinkerton’s bloom season, check out my reply to Eric’s comment on October 13, 2020 in this post: https://gregalder.com/yardposts/avocado-varieties-for-year-round-harvest/
The prospects for fruit set on the early bloom seem to be lower than during spring, especially late spring, when there is more bee activity and warmer weather. But some fruit set on the early bloom can happen.
I don’t find that Pinkertons taste very good from my tree until February, but I never get an extremely early bloom (as early as October, for example). If your Pinkerton set from bloom in March or April, then I’d wait until February to pick yours too. (If you have that much self-discipline!)
Do you recommend pruning them off or just leaving them?
Hi Jane,
That’s a good question. I was just going to leave them so I could see if any fruit set. I still will leave the flowers on all the trees except maybe the apples and pear.
I might remove the apple and pear flowers now just to be on the safe side regarding the disease called fire blight.
“Ideal conditions for infection, disease development, and spread of the pathogen are rainy or humid weather with daytime temperatures from 75° to 85°F, especially when night temperatures stay above 55°F.” So says the page on fire blight at the UC IPM website: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7414.html
It also says, “Open flowers are the most common infection sites.”
Thanks, Greg. My Hood pear tree is blooming right now and it has a few pears from an earlier bloom over the summer. This tree is so vigorous, I don’t think anything could kill it! Have not had any problem with fire blight. Last winter, we pruned back about 1/3 of it to keep it a manageable size, and it didn’t have any fruit this year. I’m now working on the shape, wiring the branches to reduce crotch angles and opening it up.
I think I’m more worried that if I remove the flowers, I won’t have any fruit next year, but if I keep them will they mature normally? Until today, I didn’t think it would ever cool off or rain.
Hi Jane,
I too thought it would never cool off or rain! Seemed like it had been hot and dry forever.
I don’t know for sure if any fruit set now will mature normally. Either way, what you do with the current few flowers and fruitlets should not have any significant influence on next spring’s bloom and fruitset. If it were many flowers and fruits it probably would, but not since it’s just a few.
My Ein Shemer apple had a few off-season blooms last year (while it did set fruit, it wasn’t able to grow apples bigger than golf balls without leaves to support the operation). We did a better job of irrigating this summer in general, and it was loaded with blooms a month or so ago. I assumed it was because it has no chill requirement and the tree isn’t smart enough to realize that it gets the right amount of sunshine in the fall as well as in the spring. I’ll have to watch in the future to see if there is a relationship between late hot spells and fall blooming.
Hi Beth,
I’ll have to add a note about apple varieties like Ein Shemer and Dorsett Golden and Anna, which bloom off and on almost all year and commonly have multiple crops per year (although not all of the same size). They’re different. And I haven’t noticed that they’re blooming pattern is related to heat or water stress.
That’s so great to know. I had one Anna’s apple that looked completely dead after one too many days in the 110’s. I decided I had nothing to lose by moving it, and placed it in a shady spot. One week later, it had all new leaf and blossom buds.
Hi Tanya,
Glad it recovered!
Thanks for the info. We have an Ana Apple that we planted in June. It bloomed recently and has 10 apples about the size of a golf ball on it now.
Hi Keely,
Anna is so crazy. My aunt had an old one in her yard in Corona and it had apples on it nearly year-round.
I was wondering why some of my trees got flowers recently. That heat was horrible, I missed watering for a few days on an apple tree because the line got clogged and now almost all the leaves turned brown. Do you think that tree will survive? Its 1 year old.
Hi Sean,
That’s a shame. Small trees are so vulnerable. Luckily, this happened very late in the season, which means the tree will possibly just go into an early dormancy and be fine.
Hi Greg
My Anna and Granny Smith apple trees bloomed again last month and 2 apples set on each tree. These are young 2nd year trees in pots. I plan on putting them in ground early next year, Do you know if there ok to be planted against the brick wall? Would they cause damage to the wall or foundation? I plan to espalier the apple tree, I have already begun to train the limbs.
Hi Sergio,
I don’t think the trees will damage the wall as long as you don’t irrigate right at the base of the wall. I planted a Fuji apple tree a few feet from a cinderblock wall in my mom’s backyard around eight years ago and haven’t seen any problems.
Hi Greg, Interesting post again! I had not connected the dots on late hot weather causing the fruit confusion. 2020 was weird enough with the late cold/wet spring weather. My Pink Lady apple didn’t set flower/fruit as it should have, but did in October! Same with my Saturn peach, which I’m worried that the wood it did set may not produce next year. Anna & Dorsett Golden are confused as ever trying to produce another set of fruit, which I just remove. See ya, Robert
Hi Robert,
It seems certain that these fall flowers will reduce the bloom in spring to some degree. Like on your Saturn peach, the buds that bloomed will not bloom again in spring because those flower buds have been “used.” Peaches almost exclusively bloom on buds on wood that grew the previous summer. No new floral buds will form between now and spring. That being said, we know that peaches usually flower and set fruit like crazy so this coming spring you might just have less fruit thinning work to do but still have a solid crop.
Have you heard of Tom Spellman’s high chill apple project?
Hi Finn,
Yes. It is a very useful project. I hope they write up a formal report on it soon. I plan to plant a few more apples, and I’d like to use their data to help guide my variety choices.
Thank you for all of the information as I thought mother nature was going crazy with all of my young trees this fall here in El Cajon! I have a peach, 2 nectarines, a pineapple guava, and a plum that I am waiting to see if they went into early dormancy due to the heat and high wind while my apples, pear, citrus, cherry, and figs seem to be confused as to what season it is. How can you tell if a young tree has died or is in early dormancy? Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
Hi Valerie,
It is a crazy fall. One of my cherries started growing new leaves this past week — in mid-November! It has yet to drop a single old leaf, and now it is growing new ones. Crazy.
Scratch the bark and see if there is green underneath. If you find green, the branch is alive. If yellow or brown, the branch is dead.
Hello,
This issue may have been taken up in your previous posts so apologies in advance for bringing this up. I received a Meyer lemon tree and Eureka lemon tree this past July. Four months later, today 11/22/20, the Meyer lemon has so many flowers and the scent is wonderful. The internet has a lot of posts with differing opinions, experiences shared by posters but do you mind sharing your opinion about the flowers – should these be left alone and let the flowers to lose on its own or should I pluck them? The Eureka lemon tree is somewhat ‘sad’ looking so yesterday I repotted it using soil for citrus plants which I used for the Meyer; initially for the Eureka I used a regular potting soil. And does flowering really = lemons? I am a Southern California resident, Zone 10b. Hoping to hearing from you soon. Thanks!
Hi Coco,
I would leave the Meyer lemon flowers and enjoy them. I can’t imagine why one would pull them off. If the tree ends up turning many of those flowers into fruit and you think it’s too much fruit for the size of the tree, then you can pull off some of the fruitlets at that time. This will help the tree grow a bit more.
Flowers on the lemon tree don’t equal lemons, but they do equal potential lemons. Every flower is a potential lemon. Best of luck!
Hi Greg,
It’s the day after Thanksgiving and I just noticed my Eva’s Pride peach tree which I planted bare root in January just started breaking buds all over. The leaves had slightly turned color and so I stripped them off to force dormancy. They came off really easily. However, I’m wondering since the buds started breaking if that will affect the fruit production for next year. What do you think, or what would you do?
Thanks so much for your posts!
Best,
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
Do you mean that the buds are showing color, as flower buds do when they expand (usually white, pink, or red)?
Anyway, the tree should be losing its leaves this time of year, and the normal order of things is that a peach tree loses its leaves now, then is bare for a bit, then opens flowers, then grows new leaves. The fact that you stripped the old leaves off recently should have no effect on the upcoming fruit production.
It looks like the buds have already started forming (“breaking”) from the new growth branches. I have an apple tree too that is doing the same thing and also had a few blossoms already, which I also stripped off along with the leaves. I am wondering if this was caused by drought stress and/or the pretty consistent Santa Ana weather we’ve had over the past few months. Or if it’s just totally normal. I forgot to add that I am in Encinitas about 2 miles from the ocean as the crow flies.
Hi Jeff,
It could be that the warmer-than-normal and drier-than-normal weather so far this fall is affecting your trees. But also, in your location, some deciduous trees can act disoriented even in a fall with normal weather. I saw this when I visited the Encinitas Community Garden at this time last year. Apples can especially act “unseasonally.”
Hi Greg,
Was this your first experience with blueberry bloom in the fall? I wonder how it would affect the bloom and harvest next spring?
Here in Long Beach, I have a half-dozen varieties that have spent their first summer in pots, pretty well, I thought. I hoped to wait for some sort of dormancy and move them into larger containers. But then some started flowering in mid-November or so. I moved them from their sunny spot into the shade from a northern wall. That might have slowed things down, but I keep seeing new flowers, the earlier ones have set fruit, and on some bushes I see buds on most branches that are ready to pop. So I wonder whether to persist in my attempt to induce dormancy, or embrace what’s happening, put plants back in the sun, and get some berries? If I had two of any single variety, I’d experiment!
Thanks for sharing so much!
Hi Vladimir,
Actually, my blueberries have bloomed a little bit and sporadically in the fall before. In fact, some are still blooming here and there right now, but I’m not seeing fruit set as I did a couple months ago.
This off bloom doesn’t make a significant difference in the amount of bloom and berries the bushes make in the normal season, as far as I’ve seen, so I don’t bother doing anything about it.
None of my blueberry bushes go completely dormant and lose all leaves. Different varieties lose more or fewer leaves, and the leaves turn slightly different colors, but not one has ever lost all of its leaves for the winter.
All of mine are in the ground and in full sun throughout the winter. I’ve experimented with putting a couple in half-day summer sun and full shade for the winter, and I saw less bloom and fewer berries with that, which is why I have all of mine in full sun all year long now.
Here is a bit more of my experience with blueberries in Southern California, if you haven’t seen this post: https://gregalder.com/yardposts/growing-blueberries-in-southern-california/
Hope you get a lot of blueberries this spring!
I have a kumquat that was in a half whiskey barrel for three years and in the ground now for a year. The summer and fall were not kind to it and it got sunburned in our heat waves. I live in La Mesa. I got a flush of new growth and blossoms after it cooled down. However, now I am getting more die off. Mainly at the end of branches, and not necessarily on new growth. All in all the tree is not looking so hot and is continually loosing leaves and drying out of the branch tips. In your opinion, does this tree sound like it is going to make it?
Hi Dan,
I’d say it still has a chance. Our fall was very warm and dry this year. Maybe it just didn’t get enough water?
If the tree doesn’t perform well in the late winter flush and bloom, I’d give up on it then.
Thank you for your response. The tree is loosing leaves at a high rate and all leaves look to be damaged. All this since I wrote the first time. I am certain it will not make it and I am going to take your advise and plant a Kushu tangerine in its place.
Sorry to hear it, Dan. But I think you’ll be happy with a Kishu if you don’t mind small fruit. My Kishus have been delicious bursts of citrus sweet this past week, and they’re so easy to peel.