If you live in a part of the country that gets nice and cold (I'm in NY) Feb is the IDEAL time to do heavy pruning and/or rejuvenation on most trees and shrubs, including apples, pears, crabapples, etc. Apple trees want lots of sunlight penetration and air circulation to produce, so make openings in their canopy and take lots of branches out of the interior of your trees so they can 'breathe.' A healthy tree/shrub can have 1/4 to 1/3 of its living tissue removed this time of year without stressing it. If a tree is not healthy, make some major cuts, but back off a bit in the amount of living growth you remove. Top priorities for pruning in order of removal are 1) Dead/damaged limbs 2) crossing and rubbing branches 3) water suckers (those thin shoots that go straight up) and then cuts for air circulation and sunlight penetration. For Apple bearing, try to prune to lateral shoots, as those tend to bear fruit better than vertical ones. Please feel free to ask me specific or general questions. I've been working as a gardener/landscaper for 14 years now and have a good amount of horticultural know-how that I'm happy to share. I'm not an expert farmer and don't have a ton of orchard experience, but pruning is one of my specialties and I'd love to help any of u guys out who have questions. Also the WWW is a great resource, obviously...
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Rejuvenate your fruit trees now!
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Re: Rejuvenate your fruit trees now!
How do you feel about double lead leaders for Apple trees?
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Re: Rejuvenate your fruit trees now!
I know that there are tons of varieties of apple trees, so one answer probably won't fit all. I would say a lot depends on habitat, exposure and what the crotch angle between those leaders looks like. If they form a narrow, steep angle between each other (the two leaders), that is a very weak spot that could easily split and fail some day under the weight of snow, ice or apples. Also a tight angle between competing leaders can lead to issues with air circulation and light penetration. If you have multiple, spread out leaders with good, sturdy, wide crotch angles, that can be ok. Another factor would be competing canopies. If there are already a good amount of trees hogging the apple tree 's sunlight, decide what form wil best capture sunlight for your apple tree.
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Re: Rejuvenate your fruit trees now!
ozzz wrote:How do you feel about double lead leaders for Apple trees?
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What is this?
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Re: Rejuvenate your fruit trees now!
Typically a central leader is traimed for an apple tree and everything comes off that. I sometimes do two main leaders.
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Re: Rejuvenate your fruit trees now!
On one of my old properties I probably found 15-20 wild apple trees covered in canopy, no air space, and alot of dead wood. They needed to be released. So I trimmed out around all of them, pruned like mermatt said. I even put fertilizer spikes around a few in key locations that I think helps. I ended having a bunch of producing apples and what I found is alot of them had different drop times. Some would be done in September others would hold till November.
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Re: Rejuvenate your fruit trees now!
Great thread! I have an apple tree in my back yard that only produces a few apples each year. I bought the house in 2012 so I've only been here a few years. The tree does have a bunch of branches and doesnt look like it was ever pruned. I'll give this a try and see how it works. Whats the maximum size branches I should be trimming? My tree just kinda grows straight up with alot of branches in the middle. Its kinda shaped like a teepee.
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Re: Rejuvenate your fruit trees now!
Hawthorne wrote:On one of my old properties I probably found 15-20 wild apple trees covered in canopy, no air space, and alot of dead wood. They needed to be released. So I trimmed out around all of them, pruned like mermatt said. I even put fertilizer spikes around a few in key locations that I think helps. I ended having a bunch of producing apples and what I found is alot of them had different drop times. Some would be done in September others would hold till November.
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That spread out drop time is ideal!
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Re: Rejuvenate your fruit trees now!
Mathewshooter wrote:Great thread! I have an apple tree in my back yard that only produces a few apples each year. I bought the house in 2012 so I've only been here a few years. The tree does have a bunch of branches and doesnt look like it was ever pruned. I'll give this a try and see how it works. Whats the maximum size branches I should be trimming? My tree just kinda grows straight up with alot of branches in the middle. Its kinda shaped like a teepee.
Open it up!!! Don't worry about the size of the branches you take out, more importantly make sure that you watch how much total volume of the tree's living tissue you remove. Pruning is the art/science of balancing right now with the future. In an ideal world, you want to be leaving branches that will be able to mature and bear fruit and removing those which will not work out. A very important note: if you do remove large branches/limbs, make sure that the next branch you cut to is at least 1/3 the size of the one you're removing. Otherwise, the branch you leave won't be big enough to resume all the energy and nutrients the tree sends there and will result in unproductive suckering like crazy from that spot.
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Re: Rejuvenate your fruit trees now!
I think the best time to trim your tree for maximum growth is after the bitter cold is gone, but before bud swell. You can trim it anytime while dormant if your not able get to it at that time of year though. Waiting until the bitter cold is gone reduces the chance of any damage to the cut areas from extreme temperatures. It's not usually a problem for most people though. If you want to slow down the growth some then trim anytime you get a chance during the summer. Cut off water sprouts any time you see them.
Generally speaking you don't want a double leader. You get a stronger more productive tree with a single central leader.
ozzz wrote:Typically a central leader is traimed for an apple tree and everything comes off that. I sometimes do two main leaders.
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Generally speaking you don't want a double leader. You get a stronger more productive tree with a single central leader.
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Re: Rejuvenate your fruit trees now!
BTW, I bumped up an old thread on pruning apple trees for anyone that is interested.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6365
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6365
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Re: Rejuvenate your fruit trees now!
DEERSLAYER wrote:BTW, I bumped up an old thread on pruning apple trees for anyone that is interested.
http://www.thehuntingbeast.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6365
Just went to your thread, Deerslayer. That's perfect. We should delete my thread and just bump that one. That's what people who are interested in apple pruning need to read. Well assembled and logical stream of information. Nicely done.
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