Apple crop very poor again

It can only be an effect of the drought but my apple crop this year is no better than last year.  In a normal year, my Bramley tree starts to drop fully grown fruit towards the end of July and to continue dropping at about 5kg per day for three months.  A total of over 400kg in a year was not unusual.  I could press these in batches of 30kg and from each batch get upto 70% out be weight in fresh juice.  I would bottle and pasteurise 12 litres from each batch and the rest was drunk fresh or fermented for cider. At the end of the season all our glass juice bottles would be full that's 160 and enough to last a full year.  Some of the cider would go on to make vinegar.

Last year I didn't press any apples at all as they seemed altogether too small and dry.  I did boil 50 kg to extract the syrup and made a stock of what we call apple molasses.

This year, the apples are just as small and, despite not being ripe, they have already begun to drop.  Last week I pressed about 12kg of miserably small apples and a total of 6.5 litres of juice eventually squeezed out.  I now have 7 bottles of pasteurised juice which is a very meagre reward.