Apple trees.

[Gumneck]

Ok, tks.

 

[windthrown]

Posting to bring this thread up to the top of the AS pile...

 

[Blakesmaster]

I did some work yesterday in my boss's old orchard. The apple trees have been competing with loads of others from ash to hickory for sunlight. He's an avid hunter and the eventual plan is to remove the majority of other trees saving only a select few. Most of my fruit tree pruning experience was as stated before...Trim all deadwood and suckers, shorten length of branches and blast out a few tops to encourage horizontal growth. But because of the other sunlight competition in the area may of these wild apples grew to over 40 ft high with the first significant branches appearing at 25-30ft. I was perplexed. My boss told me to hack 'em in half, leaving a few suckers and minor branches on a long spar. I did it but I worry that they will actually live, much less produce. Any ideas on trimming these types of tall spindly's for fruit?

 

[windthrown]

Tall spindlys usually need a lot of pruning to re-create a good scaffold for fruit priduction, o/w the limbs just hang down and break off with any fruit bearing weight. With apples (and any pome fruit trees), you can hack them back pretty far. You can also do it over several years time on the old trees, but I have found that they tend to respond well to a good heavy pruning. BTW: apples require 80-90% pruning anyway, once established, as the fruit spurs last for a really long time.

 

[Blakesmaster]

Thanks! That's pretty much what I figured, I've seen apples come back awesomely from some serious hacking but was a bit concerned because I have only tackled about 10% of his orchard, the other 90 being next weeks' project. Wanted to get another opinion before I tackled it. One more though. If we don't get the bigger hardwoods cut down extremely soon and the apples don't get quite enough sunlight over the next season or two...well, obviously that's bad, but how much so, death?

 

[windthrown]

I would have to see the overgrowing trees and the apple trees to answer that. It is variable. We have trees here that are being overgown by conifers. Some are dead, and some are dying, and some we are clearing of conifers so that they recover. Some of the old apples here are old hollow trees that are failing. But they are on their own roots, not grafted, so that I have been allowing some suckers to sprout and I will train them into new trees on the old roots. These are remnants in an old orchard that is over 60 years old now. There are a lot of them around here. This area was a huge fruit producing area between WWI and WWII.

 

[JackD_ME]

This is a timely thread!
I'm going out today to prune 20-25 apple trees we found while thinning an overgrown white pine area this winter.
I am also going to prune for wildlife more than my own consumption.
Some of these apple trees were bent over and held to the ground by falling (dead) poplar and pine, and some are just sunlight starved. The poplar was all harvested and about 40% of the [60+ foot] white pines are left standing.

Before I cut any more large trees out, I want to see how & where the pine seedlings sprout. I might even get some photo's if there is any sunlight.

 

[Blakesmaster]

Back in the orchard again today. One of the larger specimens had fallen over and landed an a real nice little guy that would've made a great producer once pruned; and uprooted half of it. Ever heard of trying to stand one back up with a skidsteer? That's my idea. Think it might come back?

 

[nuttidoxieg4]

Hi there. New to the site. I have a ton of question on trees. Bought my first house about a year ago and have like 9 trees (7 of them 25+ other two are apple.. one red one yellow. anyhow i will try to get one problem solved but will probably be posting a lot. anyhow the apple tree are about 15 years old... never been pruned (none of them have ever been according to neighbor) When we moved in the apples were incredibly good, last summer they were really bad. I want to prune them but never was sure when or what exactly to prune. Lot of dead branches etc. I'm not looking for aesthetics considering i think they are too far gone for that... but even if they weren't i'd rather the fruit. I just didnt want to stress the trees out but reading some of these other post it looks like stressing them is a good thing??? I live in PA, temp here has been high 50s during the day and high 30s at night.. not sure if that helps. here are some pictures of the two trees. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[windthrown]

Back in the orchard again today. One of the larger specimens had fallen over and landed an a real nice little guy that would've made a great producer once pruned; and uprooted half of it. Ever heard of trying to stand one back up with a skidsteer? That's my idea. Think it might come back?

Depends on the size of the tree. If say, less than 3 inches in diameter, it may have a good chance. If the roots are complete and the trunk is not broken, and it is still dormant that is. Stake it upright. Larger trees will probably not survive.

 

[windthrown]

Hi there. New to the site. I have a ton of question on trees. Bought my first house about a year ago and have like 9 trees (7 of them 25+ other two are apple.. one red one yellow. anyhow i will try to get one problem solved but will probably be posting a lot. anyhow the apple tree are about 15 years old... never been pruned (none of them have ever been according to neighbor) When we moved in the apples were incredibly good, last summer they were really bad. I want to prune them but never was sure when or what exactly to prune. Lot of dead branches etc. I'm not looking for aesthetics considering i think they are too far gone for that... but even if they weren't i'd rather the fruit. I just didnt want to stress the trees out but reading some of these other post it looks like stressing them is a good thing??? I live in PA, temp here has been high 50s during the day and high 30s at night.. not sure if that helps. here are some pictures of the two trees. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Pruning does not strees a tree out. If anything, it reduces stress and improves vigor. Apples in their prime are pruned about 90% of all new growth (once a skaffold and fruit spur system is set up). More pruning will give you a more consistant yeild, and one that is not alternating in years. You should also thin your apples when they are small (when they are the size of ripe cherries). That will lower the sugar load on the tree and improve the flaor of the rest of the apples, while lowering the demand on the tree and allow it to reserve more starches for the following year.

I would prune off any water-spouts (long brancehs that grew last or in several previous years), remove dead and damaged limbs and then any parallel limbs the first year. Apples especially tend to have forks in the branches and long parallel leaders growing from them. Choose one and hack the other. Then cut the one that was left back to a place that it will support the apple load. Then remove any limbs that cross back into the center of the tree. That should be enough for the first year of pruning. The second year you can look at restructuring the tree for supporting a spur system, removing cross-over, damage and diseased limbs that you missed the year before, and prune for fruit, accordingly. After the 3rd year you will be in a more consistant pruning mode for rejouvinating the spur system and removing most of the new growth and working on a better ballanced tree (shorten weak branches, allow branches to form and grow in open areas, and shape the tree better).

 

[Blakesmaster]

Thanks Windthrown, the tree is probably 5 inch DBH and maybe one quarter of the roots are broken. I'm fairly confident it willl come back but I'll let you know the results.