Pruning Apple Trees

[MrCMB99]

Hi,

Last year I purchased three apple trees (one Honeycrisp, one Liberty, one Arkansas Black) to grown in my front yard. I’ve always been fascinated by fruit trees (when I was little my grandfather had a huge cherry tree in his backyard before he passed). This is my first try at growing my own fruit tress, and while I am excited by the project, I’m also a bit nervous.

My goal is to keep them as contained as possible, as I don’t have a ton of space – I was thinking about 4-5 feet wide and maybe 8 feet tall. I know people say I need to prune them to help achieve healthy limbs and to get a larger yield of fruit, but I’m lost – there are about a thousand different methods on the internet, and if I’m being honest, I’m not sure I fully understand the lingo on the each website.

I took pictures of each tree from a few different angles and put them on a quick website. https://sites.google.com/view/mrcmb99/trees

Can you please recommend what I should do to prune and care for these trees?

Thanks for all your help!

Best,
Chris

[smallblueplanet]

I don't know a lot about fruit trees, but have a few 'planted' in our garden. However they are all grafted trees and each have different rootstock. Are your trees grafted and if so onto what as this will affect how big they grow.
As for pruning I know even less except there are certain times of the year that are better than others to prune different fruit trees. Although I've been know to take a risk and 'chop' off bits at any time. I'm sure I take off the wrong bits but still we get some fruit - I think how much is actually down to when we get frosts as sometimes that kills any blossom that may have set.

Anyway, good luck with your trees and invest in a decent book, I think we paid £5 for The Fruit Expert by GD Hessayon, perhaps a bit old by now but I'm sure its basics will be okay.

[burnie]

Those trees do not look like they are grafted onto a dwarfing rootstock, so you may find them tricky to keep to a smaller size by pruning alone. In the UK we can get different root stocks to restrict the potential size that an adult tree will attain.

[nickdub]

The general idea of pruning young trees is take pieces out to encourage two or 3 new branches to grow from below the point that you prune them - in the case of bush trees like yours some sort of wine goblet shape of branches is the desired outcome after a few years. As has already been said the heights you mention are probably unachievable for apple trees unless they are on very dwarfing rootstocks.

The RHS site has some good diagrams on it showing where pruning cuts ought to be made.

[Mikey]

The following link will break down the rootstocks for you. The third tree appears to be on a M111 rootstock which is about 2.5m tall.

https://www.tomtheappleman.co.uk/rootstocks-explained/

Now is probably a little late as it's probably already in bud, however, have a look at where the new buds are coming from and take away any potential new branches that are likely to be growing in the wrong direction for you.

You can start to tie some of the side branches down horizontally and train it into an espalier shape if you want to, don't over bend though as they might break and you will allow disease in.

With an espalier shape you want to encourage lots of shorter side shoots off each arm as these will be what your apples grow on, and you want to take away any weak whip-like end growth, which will bend under the weight of fruit later in the year.

Anything which is growing directly up that is beyond your preferred reach cut back to just above a side branch that will give you a more bushy appearance, and more opportunity for side branches and fruiting stems.

Pruning apples is not difficult but, it is best achieved when it is dormant, December to Feb. A lot of apples flower quite early in the year, so you don't want to prune during this. As your trees are newly rooted, I'd also be looking at taking any fruit it produces away this year in early June so that it concentrates on roots and new branches.

Feed with potash, I tend to add the ash from the wood fire and let this soak in. I also like to remove any weeds that start to cover the base of the tree as this makes life easier when feeding. Applying mulch around the base helps.

Don't be too worried though, pruning anything takes practise and we all make mistakes. Research your chosen fruit trees when they flower, when they fruit, how the fruit stores and also the rootstock so you have plenty of information to hand.

[It never rains..it pours]

All my young fruit trees are not on dwarfing rootstocks, soil to heavy and wet for dwarfing, Im trying festooning to try and keep them to a height of about 8ft and hopefully get earlier fruiting
https://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gr...festooning.jpg

[Nicos]

Don't know much about pruning, but , having looked at your photos it does look like at least one of the trees is in direct, or very near, contact with its support post.
Any moving around in the wind will cause it to rub and damage the bark creating a potential for disease to attack the plant.
Can you move the post slightly further away or wrap some fabric between the two to create a soft buffer?

[FB.]

There are a lot of unknowns. How established are their roots? What rootstocks? How good/bad is the soil?

But to me they look much too straggly, with long, unbranched growth.

In the absence of full information, if they were mine I would cut them back extremely hard.

1. The longest branches cut back to only a quarter of their current length.
2. The medium branches cut back to half of their current length.
3. If you are able to make the pruning cut just above a very short side shoot or large bud (i.e. that shoot/large bud is at the end of what remains of the branch after pruning) it might improve the branch angles of the buds which grow out below the pruning cut.

However, I think both Liberty and Arkansas Black are triploids. In my experience, triploids don't branch as freely as diploids and can take some years of pruning to make them bushy rather than straggly.

The more you prune them, the less fruit you're likely to get.

If you want fruit, don't prune. But you could end up with a poorly shaped tree.

If you want a well-shaped tree, you may have to sacrifice fruiting for a few years because winter (dormant) pruning reduces the amount of blossom and deters the tree from producing flower buds for the following year or two.

[It never rains..it pours]

FB, thanks for info. When do you say dormant season ends, pre bud swell or pre bud break ?,. As have only just pruned mine, did a trade off of sap rising making buds swell vs reduced canker infection risk.

[FB.]

FB, thanks for info. When do you say dormant season ends, pre bud swell or pre bud break ?,. As have only just pruned mine, did a trade off of sap rising making buds swell vs reduced canker infection risk.

My definition would be before bud swell. I usually prune mine during an expected dry spell in mid-winter.
Even if the buds are swelling an apple tree usually won't mind being pruned.
But they don't like being hard pruned when in full leaf during summer or early autumn. Well, not unless you want to seriously take the vigour out of them.
I've seen plenty of people 'tidy up' (prune lots of the leaves off) an old mature tree in late summer, only for the shocked tree to go into a terminal decline leading to its death a few years later.