After 10 years of struggling to produce edible apples in my backyard, I have a greater appreciation for the labor and management that goes into growing the bountiful bins of blemish-free, photo-perfect apples in the supermarket.

Growing apples is a little like raising kids. Even dedicated years of nurturing and attention are no guarantee the crop will turn out successfully.

I have been diligently pruning, watering, thinning and spraying my three apple trees since the mid-1990s and I am embarrassed to admit that I would not have been able to place a full bowl of respectable red apples in front of my favorite teacher at the end of any of those years.

Finally, this year, I may be able to award my teacher with a juicy, plump, red apple. (Of course that act will require that I enroll in some sort of class this fall!)

If you grow apples, you know that apple trees are hosts to many insects and diseases. Common diseases include apple scab and fire blight. Common insect pests include apple maggot, plum curculio, and codling moth.

Growing edible fruit requires, according to University of Minnesota extension horticulturists, a careful program of sanitation and, in many cases, application of chemical pesticides. Apple growers who choose not to control disease and insects with chemicals have an even more challenging task of producing blemish-free fruit.

Apple scab is the most damaging disease of apple trees in Minnesota. Apple scab is caused by a fungus and is most severe following periods of wet weather.

Symptoms can include brown leaf spots, yellowing leaves and partial defoliation. Fruit may also be infected, initially displaying lesions similar to those appearing on leaves. Later these lesions can become brown and corky. Severe infections cause fruit to mature unevenly and crack.

Apple scab does not seriously harm apple trees. However, heavy defoliation causes apple trees to be less attractive, reduces growth and yield, and increases susceptibility to winter injury.

Some apple varieties are more resistant to apple scab than others. This year, my Haralred tree dropped about a third of its leaves while my two Honeycrisp trees didn’t drop any leaves.

My Honeycrisp apples look much better than my Haralred apples. The two Honeycrisp trees have been in the ground for years but are producing fruit for the first time this year. Last year I asked a University of Minnesota fruit specialist why my Honeycrisp trees had never produced fruit. He suggested that I refrain from pruning any branches during the dormant season. I followed his advice and was delighted this spring when both trees had respectable flushes of blossoms.

Since apple trees have a habit of growing many more branches than are desirable for good fruit production, I will need to do some catch-up pruning next winter. Hopefully the pruning will not deter future fruit production. Apple trees need to be pruned on an annual basis, in late winter, to maintain good form and air circulation between branches.

Another key aspect of apple management is fruit thinning. When the apples on my trees were marble size, I practiced “tough love” by plucking off healthy apples so each cluster contained just one apple. It’s not easy to destroy clusters of perfect young apples but apple experts recommend reducing clusters to one apple for optimum fruit production. In a couple of cases, I left two apples in a cluster and will be paying close attention to whether I get two full-size apples or whether reducing the population to one apple would have been a more productive strategy.

Fireblight is a serious and potentially fatal disease of apples and can enter fresh pruning wounds during misty or rainy weather. This is why apples should only be pruned in the dormant season. If you must prune during the growing season, do it during a dry spell when no rain is forecast and the air is dry.

The most damaging insect pest in most Minnesota home orchards is apple maggot, a small fly whose larvae tunnel through the flesh of the apple, making the fruit inedible. For information on managing this pest, see “Apple Maggot Management in Home Gardens,” http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/ horticulture/DG1007.html .

A non-chemical technique for preventing apple maggot involves fastening plastic sandwich bags over the apples when they are still small and green. The apples develop normally inside the bags, and the adult flies cannot lay eggs in the flesh.