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Our apricot tree is about 5 years old. It produced awesome big apricots last year, but this year they are dropping off the tree at the size of a quarter. It looks like the stems that connect the apricots to the tree branch are dry and breaking off really easily.
Any ideas why this is happening?
Depends how many fruitlets are falling - if its a percentage, this might just be what's known as 'June Drop'. Many fruit trees do this - it refers to the tree deciding for itself that it's carrying too many fruits, so it drops some and keeps the rest so that they mature and swell properly, because from the tree's point of view, its fruits are only seedcases, and it wants to reproduce efficiently. It may be that your tree produced many fruitlets, which they do as a guard against poor conditions, and that's why its dropping some now. In fact, if it didn't drop some and there were lots, you'd be hand thinning instead.
If, on the other hand, all the fruits are dropping, but there is no sign of disease or infestation, dryness at the root can cause this, and, conversely, being too wet at the root.
Sometimes, as much as 1/3 of the fruits needs to be eliminated in order for the rest to do well.
