Why Your Fruit Trees Aren't Bearing Fruit (And How To Fix It)

Fruit trees are a great way to not just add shade and beauty to your yard, but also provide your family with a delicious and nutritious harvest. Unfortunately, it's possible that despite your best efforts, your trees could fail to bear fruit. While there are a variety of potential causes for this, one of the most common possibilities is that, in your quest to take the best care of your trees that you can, you've been accidentally overfertilizing them.

If your trees have significant amounts of new growth but produce few buds and yield few fruits, you may have been providing them with too much nitrogen-heavy fertilizer. This can even happen by accident. If you've been trying to fertilize your lawn nearby, rain can carry the fertilizer to your tree's roots. Luckily, you can help your garden's fruit trees that aren't growing fruit by correcting your fertilizing technique — getting you closer to the harvest you've been waiting for.

Before fertilizing any trees or plants, it's always a good idea to do a soil test to check what, if any, nutrients your soil would benefit from. In many cases, fruit trees don't even need fertilization. If you do opt to fertilize your trees, a moderate amount of a balanced (10-10-10) fertilizer is generally the best choice, and it should be applied in early spring. It's also important to be aware that different fruit trees have different fertilization needs, so checking the specific amount that is best for your type of tree is essential. Consider that apples like a regular dose of balanced fertilizer, but pears are very sensitive. 

To avoid accidentally overfertilizing your fruit trees when trying to nourish your lawn, refrain from putting down weed and feed or fertilizer within 5 feet of the tree. (Be sure to measure from the spread of the branches and not just from the trunk.) If you're still struggling with fruit tree yields even after improving your fertilizing, you may need to look at your pruning strategies. 

While proper pruning can increase the yield on fruit trees, excessive pruning often results in little to no fruit and an unhealthy tree. You also may simply need to give your fruit trees more time. Sweet cherries can take up to seven years before they begin to fruit well.