I live in western WA (z8) in a house built in the 1950’s that has 4 apple trees on a side yard. Quite likely, the trees were planted in the same era the house was built. All old varieties, I was told: red delicious, golden delicious and gravenstein.

This is our 3rd summer here. The trees had a heavy infestation with apple maggots in our first year here with total loss of apple crop. The next spring we had the trees pruned (pruned pretty dramatically) and while there was healthy appearing new growth, there were few blossoms (not unexpected given the heavy pruning). The very few apples were less impacted by apple maggot due to regular spray schedule of horticultural oil, though some damage still was there.

This year, 3 of the trees came out of dormancy with vigor and good budding. We won’t have the bumper crop of the first season here, but that’s fine if the fruit are healthier! One tree came out of dormancy with diminished vigor and with fungi on the trunk. Some branches have brown leaves that are smaller than others.

Questions: Can this tree be saved, considering it may be 70ish years old? Is there an organic way to do so?