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People usually spray the trees for insects. Contact your local county extension agent for insects in your geographical area. They can also recommend what you should use to prevent them.
If you do not spray, the fruit will still be produced, but it is usually wormy.
It really depends on what you are growing. There are insecticidal sprays, anti-bacterial sprays and fungicides. If you but resistant trees or happen to live in an area where there are fewer problems that affect the trees then you can get away with spraying less or not spraying at all and still get decent fruit. Is there a specific type of fruit you'd like to grow?
Apple trees are one that people recommend pretty serious spraying schedules for, but in my experience it doesn't have to be so. Since you haven't purchased your tree yet, one thing you could consider is buying a resistant variety like William's Pride or Jonah Free. They've been bred to turn out nice apples with no or less spray.
That said, I grow 2 varieties that are not resistant (Spitzenburg and Honeycrisp) and have 1 deer apple tree. I dormant oil spray the 2 eating apples in late winter, but do no additional spraying. I bought drawf trees and prune them every year, so it is easy to see if I have a pest problem developing. So far, tent worms have been my only problem, and they were easy to remove without spraying. My apples look and taste great - and even many of the deer apples, which weren't sprayed at all, looked very nice.
Keep your tree area neat, feed the soil around the trees, prune them yearly and learn to spot early signs of a problem and you can get away with very little or no spray.
I personally do not have any fruit trees, but I run a garden service and maintain around 25 yards, I do not use any chemicals, I use a spray made of pyrethrum flowers, garlic and soap to spray any fruit trees, roses, shrubs, citrus and so on. The pyrethrum flowers, feverfew daisy, is an insecticide, garlic is an anti fungal, the soap is to make it sticky. I use it in the early spring before the flowers open and after that I spray it on the branches and the trunk to avoid killing bees. It keeps ants from setting up home on the tree. The garlic kills molds and fungus. This spray kills ants, wasps, yellow jackets, aphids, scale, white fly and termites, any arthropod.
Some people spray fruit trees. When I first got my apple trees, I tried spraying, but all of the warnings made me paranoid. Now I know that I should research disease resistant varieties before I buy plants. There are some disease resistant apples that supposedly give you decent fruit without spraying.
My other fruit produce fine without spraying. Bugs are the main problem. I eat around the bugs, or cut up the fruit and cut out any buggy parts to make salad or jelly. Fruits such as pawpaw, figs and raspberries have few or no bugs in my yard. Sometimes my peach trees get fungus, but pruning seems to help. So does getting the fruit before it is too ripe. I've also bagged fruit in the past with some success. This is done apparently in Japan and Korea if memory serves.
So you can get quite a lot of fruit without spraying. Pick the varieties carefully. Also learn what other plants can give your fruit trees diseases. My yard has lots of junipers, so most apples and crabapples (and hawthorns ) are a no no. As others mentioned, people spray for a variety of reasons.
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) are a no no. As others mentioned, people spray for a variety of reasons.
