6ft 4yr old Apple tree looks dead mid April?

[yardiron]

About four years ago a buddy got me two Fuji apple trees from where he works. He dropped them off in the fall, so they went the winter on my porch. The following year I dug out two near dead trees in the yard, one got hit by lightning years ago the other was an ancient tree that no longer was giving me apples.
Both trees shot up to about 6ft tall or so in the 3 1/2 or so years in the ground. They got regular water and fertilizer. Neither made many branches, they just shot straight up with only a few short twigs here and there. They changed little over the last two winters but so far this spring they look dead. No leaves, no sprouts, no sign of any life. I found it odd that they never dropped all their leaves, they started to, then we got a warm fall, and they even put on some new growth real late. Before first frost though I partially covered them with leaves as I did the last two winters.

Although I had pretty much lost hope for them when they weren't branching out, I didn't expect them to both die.
Neither one is more than 3/4" at the base, and neither trunk was gaining enough size to support its own weight. Both still needed support poles to stand.

Any ideas? I'd really like to see two new apple trees here but maybe Fuji isn't the right type for here?
I have no idea what the old trees were, they were mostly red apples, sort of small and a bit tart.
Not Granny Smith tart but close. They were both grafts off of a tree where I used to live which were propagated and grown in the early 70's.
The original tree was 25 ft tall, neigher of the two I had here got over 12ft before seemingly having come to the end of their growing life.
Neither of the original treels grew or looked anything like the parent tree they were grafted from in PA. That tree had a solid central trunk the didn't branch out until nearly 8ft off the ground. These each had multiple twisting, leaning trunks.

The two new trees were the polar opposite and grew straight upward, with the help of a guide post.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Before you give up on them try snapping a few small twigs, it is soon obvious when they are dead, no bend simply snap.

Trees are like anything else, it is a good idea not to plant the same things in the same place. If you do you want to change a fair bit of the soil and supplement it, but I reckon you would do better to grow beans for a year at least.

 

[yardiron]

Even the smallest twigs are still soft and will bend.

The two dead trees were cut down and the stumps dug out with a backhoe. I brought in 4 yards of fresh dirt to fil the holes.

There's not much of the old dirt left. I had brought in a huge load of dirt, mostly top soil that I dug up in the woods.

 

[YumYum]

How did you fertilize them and with what?

I am new with apple trees but my reseach says to fertilize in the spring when the buds break and then again near the end of May. Ferilizer strength depends on the age of the tree and adjust nitrogen by the previous years growth.

 

[yardiron]

Neitherof these seemed to do well from the start. They shot up and didn't put out any side branches till the 6ft point and then they stppped. All last year they just sort of lingered and didn't grown much, no new branches formed either. The one started to show a few buds at the very top back during a warm spell in January but then it froze again I think that may have down them in.

 

[YumYum]

The tree I bought (and I noticed others for sale) had the main stem cut to encourage it to branch outwards which it seems it did. The top bud sprouted out and is now leading the vertical growth. Do you remember them looking like that?

Kinda sounds like a fertility or root issue to me. Do you remember how you fertilized them?

 

[yardiron]

They weren't cut when I got them, just 20-24" or so stems in a gallon size container with a tag saying Fuji on them.
Each one had a main stem, with two small off shoots.
Those offshoots didn't do anything and didn't survive the second winter. They dried up and fell off with the leaves that fall.
Last year it had a bunch of short stems off the trunk that never got more than a few inches long each full of leaves, as was the top of the tree. I had something eating the top leaves on one of them midway through last year, they looked like little 1/4" long white fuzzy caterpillars. I dusted that tree with Sevin lightly and they were gone. I had picked most off by hand.
Both trees looked more like a vine than a tree growing, they got longer but not wider at the base.

When I put them in the ground, they were covered in buds for new stems. I put a yard or so of fresh top soil in around each tree, and fertilized it lightly at first and then after about a month, when the ground settled and the leaves started to come on I gave each tree about a coffee can of 10-10-10 like I use on my vegetable garden. I gave them a shot of fertilizer again after a couple of months and again in the following spring. The dirt I used in the hole was full of organics and composted manure, it really shouldn't have needed much attention.

In contrast, a maple tree I put in at the same time about 60ft away is now 15ft tall and 4" thick at the base. It was 22" tall when i planted it.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Even the smallest twigs are still soft and will bend.

In that case I wouldn't give up on them yet. The other test is to scrape the bark on a newer piece of growth with your fingernail, it is soon obvious if it is alive or dead.

Things do come out different times different years. The example that always amazes me is that when oak leaves emerge can vary considerably, but the caterpillars that feed on them hatch at just the right time as they are young and tender each year. Not only that, those caterpillars are a major source of food for baby Great Tits, and they also synchronise their laying and hatching. It is one of life's mysteries, I don't think anyone knows how they all manage it.

PS, sounds like you did a good job with the soil.

 

[yardiron]

There isn't any 'new' growth, they didn't put on much at all last year, they gained a bit of height but didn't put on any branches.
Both are 6ft tall sticks in the ground with three or four skinny five inch or so long side shoots.
There were two of three little buds or beginnings of sprouts that looked like they were waking up back in January when we had a week or two of warm weather, then it got cold for two months with a few weeks in the low 20° range. Those buds turned gray and nothing has happened since.
(At the same time my Rhododendron on the side of my house also started to put on buds which then froze. Its buds are all burnt looking now and its loosing leaves. (Its 25ft tall and spans almost 20ft wide). I think it woke up and got frost bit when the cold returned in Feb.
As April passes its usually getting read to put on massive amount of flowers by the third week in may. (7 years ago it got hit hard with a late snow storm, it hadn't begun to open its buds yet but the storm covered it in ice making it top heavy, the frozen mess toppled over and rolled upside down with the entire root ball sticking up in the air. I found it upside down in the middle of the neighbor's driveway the next morning. While it was still frozen and covered in ice, i used a come along and pulled it back over into the hole it pulled out of, added some more dirt around the base and cut some braces to support its main branches so it can't topple over again.
For a massive bush, it had very shallow roots. That year it continued to blossom as it always did and has ever since, but this year doesn't look good).

 

[yardiron]

I solved the question as to what condition both apple trees were in. After taking a good look at them the other day, I figured that if they hadn't become something promising looking by now, they likely never will. First I pulled out the worst of the two trees, to my surprise it came out with zero effort, the root ball was no bigger than when I had planted it. Maybe the size of a softball at best. The lower 10" or so of the plant was still green inside but everything above that was sort of a brown sticky mess. When I saw that I pulled out the second tree too and found the same thing. Almost no roots, and no appreciable growth above the initial height of when they were planted. Its as if any height they added after being put in the ground had died off or turned rotten somehow. The base of the one tree measured just under 3/4", the other about 5/8", both were just over six foot tall. Each had only 5 short branches that shot off the trunk but never went any further.

They were apparently adding height and nothing else, no root growth, no branches, and minimal leaf growth.
The one lone maple tree that I had planted at the same time 20 ft away is now just under 5" thick down low and the top is at least 12ft tall. Its growing in the same dirt.

I also have a ton of wild cedar trees popping up all over all of a sudden, it started two years ago. A few that I decided to let grow are now over 8ft tall and well established already. I went to dig up one that was only a foot tall, thinking I'd transplant it to a better location but the root base was huge, I dug around it trying to free it but the center root was already out of reach and well anchored. I dug down about 30 inches and couldn't get the whole root out. I gave up and just cut it off. I planted it out back, if grows, fine, if not, oh well.
I guess I'll go looking for a better apple tree to plant there, maybe find one that's more than just a stick to start with.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I know you did your best to improve the ground, but if the root ball never escaped its original shape maybe you should try a cherry or plum and put an apple somewhere else. It sounds as though they tried to grow, It wasn't an immediate death, but something interfered with them.

There was a chap on the radio who grew elder commercially for elder flower cordial. Elder is particularly difficult to grow where they have been previously, but he left a field fallow for three years after grubbing out old trees, grew a crop of bean, manured, ploughed, replanted. And they all died.

 

[yardiron]

The old trees had huge root systems, the tap root was close to 8ft long, the roots going out to the sides were huge and spanned at least the diameter of the umbrella of each tree. Neither of the new trees had developed any roots, there was no tap root, only a few fuzzy roots about the size of a softball.
When I dug out the old root balls I dug out all the dirt, replacing it with new dirt. The two new trees never got anywhere near growing beyond the new dirt, so they likely saw no traces of the old trees. I spoke to a guy who has a few acres of apples not far from here, he said that in three years the trees should have already been well on their way to looking like viable trees, not just sticks in the ground that can't stand on their own yet. When I took the maple tree out of the burlap it came in the roots were wrapped all around, the apple trees had no sign of any visible roots when I removed them from the pots they came in. (Each one was in a 3 gallon plastic greenhouse pot).