Since the ones you brought inside did bloom, are you sure you didn't miss the bloom or it froze? Dormant oil wouldn't cause this. And I don't think the other sprays would either. I think you'd see other damage first.

Thanks, fruitnut. I am relieved it wasn't the dormant oil spray. But, yeah... mystery, huh? if the pruned branches I brought in hadn't bloomed, I'd think it was your first idea. But they did. And I don't think I missed the bloom, because I was watching the bud stages VERY closely so I'd know when to stop applying copper and switch to sulfur. I get the Co-Op Extension's apple growers newsletter and all the commercial growers here were freaking out about scab because of the weather, so I was trying to be all vigilant and apply my organic fungicides at the correct time. So I was closely monitoring the buds, which broke, formed leaves, and then the leaves just grew. No flower buds, no blossoms. And I think it's just too late now... as I said the crabapples have finished and these fruit trees have large leaves now, and still no flower buds.

Argh- what happened???

>In February/march when I pruned, I brought some pruned branches inside to
>force and THOSE bloomed for me.

How much did you prune? Is it possible you cut off all the branches that would have flowered?

IF you were monitoring the buds, did you identify flower buds? If so, did something happen to them? Did they die, shrivel up, fall off?

The thing is, your trees were already making flower buds - or not - last fall.

I'm thinking that alexander may have the answer.

Well, I didn't prune the two older ones (Bartlett Pear and Honeycrisp) any more than I did last year, which is to say, lightly-to-moderately pruned and they flowered fine last year... and I BARELY pruned the two younger apple trees, since they did not have much growth to begin with.... I just can't imagine how I would have pruned off every single branch with flowering capability on 4 different trees, unless I really pruned them super heavily, which I didn't.

The Honeycrisp apple got the most pruning this year, but I followed various tutorials and felt I was actually probably not taking enough off. But I am new to this so I guess I could be wrong! In any case, the other 3 only got very lightly pruned.

And, no, no flower buds ever showed up at all.

I have to get my yard ready for a delivery of 10 tons of gravel thats on its way, but I'll try to take some photos later on so you can see how much I pruned.

If the branches you forced bloomed, they had flower buds when you pruned them.

Thanks, yes I realize that. That's why I mentioned it as a possible clue. It rules out a lot of things that may have caused the lack of bloom.

I still can't imagine that I managed to prune off every single other latent bud from four trees, though. In fact it's just not possible. The branches I removed (that flowered indoors) had flowers all along them, and I left plenty of identical intact branches that should have been the same.

I have a peach tree, the first two year got fruit not the third year that I sprayed neam oil. Forth year I didn’t spray neam oil and I gor a lot of fruit. I think neam oil prevent the fruit tree to bear fruit.