Interesting problem...we have some goldens that are pretty light setters, but having virtually nothing is a bit odd. When the bees were flying, did you notice them in your trees? Did you look at the pollen sacks to see if they were actually gathering pollen? The pollen could have been dry and not viable. I don't think lack of pollenizers is an issue at all. That golden tree should really be all you need. Golden is an excellent pollen source. Based on what you said, I don't think it was frost. Your pears were ok and you didn't have honeycrisp...and HC is a tough little bugger. What about hot temperatures in the month or so after bloom? That could cause an ethylene response to cause them to abort. Same thing with carbaryl...carbaryl with warm temps is even worse. Did you cut open any of your fruitlets to see if they had seeds? As for competitive pollen sources, I wouldn't worry too much. Bees like apples. We don't worry about mowing dandelions...and we have a thousand acres of fruit trees.

Nice shot. Thanks for sharing. Beautiful colour.

I take it those branches without leaves are the same branches that had no leaves last year? I think those branches are dead... if you scrape a bit of bark off and under the bark is brown instead of green, or if you bend one of those branches and it snaps rather than flexes, then those branches are dead and you might as well prune them off. It looks to me like your tree had a hard transplant and is still trying to get established. But it is alive and the growth that is there seems healthy, so prune off any dead branches and let the tree fill out a bit before worrying about its form. I suspect it will come on strong later this year and next year should be vigorous. As its health picks up, expect it to put some new leaves directly out of the main trunk -- leave these on as they will become new branches to replace the branches that have died.

The disease descriptions are not always very helpful. GoldRush is super disease resistant overall, but for me CAR is my biggest problem and its a magnet for that. So, its a relatively bad apple as far as diseases go for me What unhelpful descriptions were you reading Scott? CAR susceptibility was something reported in every single piece of PRI literature I've ever seen, even back when it's "name" was co-op 38? CAR susceptibility wasn't just reported, it was reported to the extreme. They pointed it out to such a degree as to make it out to be even worse than it really is. Is it maybe possible that you just weren't "listening" to the descriptions? I agree with you on the CAR as obviously it's an issue here as well, but it is also (for me) completely blemish free (fruit) on this very day as I've not picked it yet. If it tastes and stores ANYTHING like the literature says (and GW members say) then it's a winner. I only say this Scott because I've seen some of the listings of apples you've grown or tried to grow and the descriptions (when read) would have or should have made you very weary at the very least. I also agree somewhat on descriptions, though from a very different angle. So many "so called descriptions" are simply cut and paste jobs. I recently seen this for about the billionth time when harvestman posted about Crimson Topaz and nobody...and I really mean nobody had ever posted literature as to it's CAR resistance, which I can only guess would probably be found lacking. So while I hear what your saying and certainly respect your experience you chose a very bad example in Goldrush. If you were at all unaware you simply didn't look for, or read the data. It was there before it was ever released.