What's Up With My Tree?? - Ask Extension
A few years ago, I planted a Mr. Ash tree in my backyard. I knew the birds would love the berries, and I love the look of the tree. The soil is clay...
Knowledgebase
What's Up With My Tree?? #730981
Asked October 16, 2020, 5:22 PM EDT
A few years ago, I planted a Mr. Ash tree in my backyard. I knew the birds would love the berries, and I love the look of the tree. The soil is clay-loam. I like in Klamath Falls. It's grown, but it's never gotten berries, and in the Fall it doesn't turn gold, but brown. What have I done wrong? I water it every other day for about 15-20 minutes, but haven't fertilized it except at it's planting. Is the soil wrong? How can I amend it to make it better? Is it not getting enough water? Too much water? Are there male and female Mt. Ash trees and the males don't have berries? Help!! I'm stymied. Thanks so much!
Klamath County Oregon
Expert Response
HI, thanks for your question.
I noticed that another Extension agent answered a similar question very thoroughly, so I am sharing his answer here:
These trees reach maturity at around 10
years, and as a rule fertilizer should rarely if ever be needed by any
urban forest tree that is healthy and well established. So, bloom damage
or poor pollination are the most likely explanations for the lack of
viable fruit production.
Because its monaceous, this
tree can in many cases pollinate itself with the help of wind, bees and
flies and will flower and produce fruit as long as the blooms are
undamaged - by say, a late frost or an untimely severe storm event (hail
and high wind).
But as a practical, longer term
matter, it could also be that your tree need a pollinizor (another
companion tree of like species in the neighborhood).
Both
American mountain-ash (Sorbus americana) and European mountain-ash
(sorbus aucuparia) are monoecious - ('one house' : Greek) as the flowers
are 'perfect' (they have both male and femal structures). Even so, most
plants benefit from cross pollination and indeed some plants - and even
some cultivars within the same species - are self sterile due to either
gametophytic or sporophytic lethal genes that prevent self pollination.
Sometimes
if the fruit sets parthenocarpically, then they will fall off as there
is no seed in them. To test this explanation you just need to cut
through the fruitlets and check to see if there is a viable seed. If
not, then you or a neighbor will need to plant another mountain ash that
will act as a pollinizor.
Want to learn more?:
http://pss.uvm.edu/ppp/articles/mtnash.html
I hope this helps you and thanks for the question!
Want to learn more?:
http://pss.uvm.edu/ppp/articles/mtnash.html
I hope this helps you and thanks for the question!
Now for a few of my own notes- if your tree is young, it completely makes sense you might not be seeing many berries yet. As they grow larger, there are more flowers to enable self- pollination as described in the answer above.
As for leaves turning brown instead of color, the most likely answer is too little water. Rather than using time, depending on what system you are using to water , it can be helpful to measure the actual amount of water being delivered. One way is described here: http://www.growyourownnevada.com/using-a-can-test-to-measure-sprinkler-rate-and-uniformity/
Measuring actual water delivered can be very informative. It's natural to cut back on the water at the end of the growing season.
I hope this helps, have a great day.
Nicole
