When you decide to grow a fruit tree, visions of your favorite fruit begin to dance in your head. You can almost taste the mango that your tree will surely produce. The avocados to come will be so filling and delicious. The mameys will make the very best milkshakes. But what happens when your fruit tree won’t fruit? You have invested time and money and wishes and hope into growing what amounts to nothing more than a shade tree.

I don’t want your fruit trees to be shade trees. I want you to have the fruit you desire. So, let’s take a look at some reasons why your trees might not be giving fruit.

Sunlight

Make sure your trees are getting as much sun as possible. It takes a lot of energy to produce fruit. Without sunlight, trees may not be able to flower and fruit. Because of the way the sun moves through the sky, if your tree is on the north side of a large tree or your house, it may be shaded for a large portion of the day.

Too much water or fertilizer

You can certainly kill your trees with kindness. It is often better to give a little less than to over water or over fertilize. Too much water leads to rotten roots. Too much fertilizer, especially nitrogen, can lead to excessive leaf growth, but not flowering and fruiting. If you water or fertilize, do these things in moderation.

Damaged

If your tree has been planted too deep, hit by a string trimmer (weed-whacker), or if the tree is still attached to the original stakes that came with the tree, your tree may be compromised. If a

tree is planted too deep, or if the mulch around the tree is too high up on the trunk, the tree will suffer. If the tree has been hit by a string trimmer, and this is very common, the tree’s ability to transfer the food it makes in its leaves to its roots is compromised. The outside of the tree, scientifically called phloem, is responsible for transporting food from the top of the tree to its roots. Trees that have been tied to their stakes too long also have damaged phloem because they are girdled, so make sure to not leave trees tied up too long or too tight.

Trees grown from seed

If you decide to grow your fruit tree from a seed and not use a tree propagated by grafting or air-layer, you can run into trouble. Seedling trees are not the same as the tree you took the fruit from, so if you wanted that cultivar, you aren’t going to get it. You will get the mother tree, mixed with whatever tree pollinated the mother tree. Seedling trees are also notorious for taking a long time to fruit. Seedling trees need to go through all the stages of sexual maturity until they are ready to finally fruit. Trees propagated asexually, think grafted or air-layered trees, are already sexually mature and begin fruiting as soon as they are big enough to hold the fruit. Finally, there are some trees that are either male or female like black sapote or abiu. If you grow one of these from seed, you may get a male which will never produce fruit.

You want your fruit trees to fruit, so make sure you follow the above guidelines and happy fruiting!

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