First, call your local county extension agent. They are a great source of information. At the bottom of this post is a link to Cornell university Home fruit Program. Go to the bottom of the Cornell page to see the home programs. That will get you started. Yap birds got you cherries. Either nets or scary things. I will post on another post about a monofiliment scary bird thing. Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell Fruit page

I would go ahead and start a spraying schedule. You may have some pests already, but you'll certainly cut down the numbers enough to have some nice apples. We planted a Granny Smith last year as well, and this year it surprised us by being covered in blossoms. After we planted we found out that they are not recommended for zone 5 (long ripening time), but I figured the apples don't have to be totally ripe for pie!

I would guess that you're seeing a combination of damage from leafrollers, plum curculio, a little bit of apple scab, and probably some other things. To grow fruit in Minnesota, you really do have to spray regularly in order to get any edible fruit at all. Even the organic producers spray here, they just use organic spray instead of synthetic. The absolute minimum is to use a combination "home fruit" spray starting in the spring after petal fall and then at 2-3 week intervals until the end of June.

Brandon, It has been about 1 year since planting my first fruit trees in my backyard orchard. I am proud of my accomplishments, here are my insights. "1. Trees will be planted in East Tennessee (zone 6b technically, zone 7b realistically)." Virtually all Apples and Pears can grow good in zone 7. The most important thing is a least 8 hours summer direct sunlight for trees to overcome disease , insects and to bear fruit. "2. Trees will need to be no-spray or nearly no-spray varieties." Don answered this expertly, "The "low-spray" feature advertised on some apple varieties refers only to diseases..." "No apple is resistant to any insect pest. And there are a lot of those." "The only fruit tree I grow that requires no spraying is the Asian pear..." "3. Fruit needs to taste as good as possible." Check out a local farmstand/market, taste, ask questions. "4. Quality of fruit is much more important than quantity." I am growing a Flat Wonderful peach tree. The foliage is a specimen quality deep purple color and the tree is vigorous. I am told the spring blooms are a knockout, and the flat peaches taste extraordinary. My "no spray" Olympic asian pear has grown to 8 feet from 36" bareroot. The dark green leaves are 3 times the size of european pear leaves. The pears start in 3rd year are gourmet quality and store for 9 months. My Home Depot bought Shinseiki asian pears came with flowers and bore three nice pears each. Shinseikis can pollinate each other and the Olympic pear, this you will have to study up on. "5. Long shelf life would be great, but will not be a limiting factor." Fuji and Gala are the hits in the apple market. Even the supermarket ones taste great. Shelf life of a Fuji is up to one year. The asian pears can be eaten off the tree unlike the europeans, that have to be ripened. The Olympic pear has the longest life for the asians at nine months. "6. Trees that will produce over a long period of time are preferred over short lived/short production life trees." Standard pear trees can live to 100 years. Dwarf pears 35 years. Maybe 15 years for dwarf peaches, apples. Standard trees grow alot longer than dwarfs. Dwarfs bear fruit earlier. In some cases it can save a few years or more getting fruit on the table. Henry Fields has a sale till Thursday Oct. 4. The Olympic and a Flat Wonderful $20.22 each including shipping. I have ordered a 4 varieties grafted to 1 asian pear from Raintree Nursery to be delivered in March 2008. $67 each including $25 shipping. Grover