Apple Tree?

[Maggie]

This a picture of my golden delicious apple tree that we planted last fall along with a red delicious. Well its loaded with apples but the red delicious only had 3 apples and 2 of those fell off. I always heard that the apples would fall off the first year you plant the trees but the golden has only lost 1. Should I pick these off so the growth will go into the tree or leave them alone and see if they ripen? The apples are so heavy that we had to stake the tree today. I sure would hate for the apples to suck the life out of the tree. I lost 3 apple trees last year and my cherry tree was dead this spring. I do know the fruit trees were at least 25 to 30 years old. Could they have died from old age?

 

[Kya D]

You might want to prop up the branch with a t-brace cuz as the apples get bigger the tree might break.

 

[Kya D]

I don't think 25 year old trees would die of old age... we have apricot trees at work that are 125 years old and they still produce way too much
Maybe you could pick half of the apples
Generally you would have picked the fruit when it was very small to save the tree.

 

[Randy]

I would thin the apples to help relieve the strain, but that may also increase the size of the remaining apples.