I would say not. I see no signs of strain on any branches which is amazing for how thin they look.

Yes - they can only get heavier and if a branch breaks (in a wind maybe) the tree will lose its shape for years to come. I would take off every third or fourth apple. Take a look at the instructions in the link.

Good luck

Here is a link that might be useful: Apple Trees - Thinning

Just to take a shot at it for educational purposes, I'm going to argue that it's overloaded in terms of the demand put on the tree. A tree that size should be putting more of its energy into its future growth and less into current production. I would want it to be building reserves in its roots for next seasons growth, and I would prefer the trunk and scaffold all be bigger.

I think I ruined a graft by letting it produce the same year it took, and I'm also thinking I helped kill my apricot tree by letting it bear too heavily after summer pruning too much.

But I stand ready to be corrected- and I hope to learn something here.

Good luck,

M

I actually don't have a lot of experience with full dwarfs but the tree looks about right to me. Not sure if there is enough new growth though, from the photograph. If the tree bears well again next year, you'll know you didn't strain it. The apples look beautiful.

A dwarf umbrella, hmmm... yeah, that might just work. Williams Pride will cooperate with that shape, I think.

Marc,

I can only share from experience. I have a WP on M26 which bore fruit for the first time last year. We picked 19 lovely large apples from the tree. They were a nice mid summer treat. This year is a different story. We have eaten 2 of the 3 apples that grew on it this year. Was my tree overloaded? I don't know. I just know that it has only 3 apples this year. The bloom was sparse as well. I assumed it wore itself out producing all those nice apples, and failed to prepare for the following season.
My advice: savor the delights of those apples this season, and wait and see for next.

Happy fruit growing,
Ted

I just looked up Williams Pride to see if it was prone to biennial fruiting. I don't think it really matters at this point. Purdue says it ripens a week after Lodi and about 8 weeks before Delicious.
It also says they don't drop easily.
They may be ripe and it sounds like they will hang until over ripe. I'd pick one to taste it and check the seeds.

It also sounds like it is not prone to biennial fruiting,
"Moderate to moderately heavy annual crops of moderate to large-sized fruits are produced without chemical or manual thinning."

At this point all you can do is wait until next year but it sounds like you should be safe as far as biennial fruiting from that load, and obviously safe as far as overloading the branches.

Hard to say why tedgrowsit had a light blossom year. 19 doesn't sound like too many to me unless the tree is really small.
I know it is not an issue on some trees and a big issue on others.

Here is a link that might be useful: Williams Pride - Purdue

Bienniel bearing is a complicated issue. Universities don't test in typical home orchard sites where trees don't necessarily get perfect sun or have forest trees nearby competing for nutrients and water. At some sites most any tree can be bienniel, even if it's properly thinned.

But this site looks like the trees pretty much stand alone-besides that thick turf which is partially kept at bay by the modest mulched ring. I'd make that ring a bit wider- especially for the M7's. About 6' is optimum in my opinion.