pruning apple trees into previous years wood

[muckledug]

I have inherited 2 rather mis-shapen apple trees. I'm guessing they are 2 or 3 years old - one of which is not very strong growing. Not quite sure what to do with them. Cutting back this years growth would still leave them impractically shaped but I'm not sure what happens when you cut into older wood. I presume that it's best left to the dormant season anyway?
Thanks in advance.

[Capsid]

You can prune in the summer. But I'm no expert. A forum member called FB is the person who will advise you best.

[rustylady]

Do you have any pictures of the trees. That would be a big help.

[FB.]

I have inherited 2 rather mis-shapen apple trees. I'm guessing they are 2 or 3 years old - one of which is not very strong growing. Not quite sure what to do with them. Cutting back this years growth would still leave them impractically shaped but I'm not sure what happens when you cut into older wood. I presume that it's best left to the dormant season anyway?
Thanks in advance.

There's not a major problem with cutting into older wood, but if you do it while they are in leaf, it will weaken the plant. Weakening can be an advantage and can induce heavy cropping the next year where the plant is growing too strongly, but summer pruning will make a weak plant struggle even further - or kill it.

I just "coppiced" my hazels. It's not the time I should be doing it, but months of very heavy rain (when we normally have very dry conditions) has changed the dynamics of my soil and many things which usually grow at a manageable rate are now out of control because they have massive root systems adapted to fnding what little rain we usually get - but when we get ultra-heavy rain, these huge root systems waste no time in soaking it all up from far and wide.
So, with my hazels having put on 3ft of new growth, I decided that they were out of control and needed seriously de-vigorating, so I sawed-off all my hazels at ground level. (don't saw a grafted tree at ground level or you'll lose what was grafted to it!).

[muckledug]

Thanks for your replies folks.
FB, you say that there's not a major problem with cutting into older wood. Does this mean that if I winter-prune a misshapen scaffold branch back into older wood, it will still produce lateral shoots in the following season?
Rusty Lady, I may well post a couple of pics to see what folks think. I don't seem to have an instinctive grasp of pruning and would welcome advice.

[FB.]

Thanks for your replies folks.
FB, you say that there's not a major problem with cutting into older wood. Does this mean that if I winter-prune a misshapen scaffold branch back into older wood, it will still produce lateral shoots in the following season?

It should do. If the branch to be pruned is more than two inches diameter (perhaps even more than an inch diameter), its removal may result in a wound which never heals properly, so the inner wood may rot.
By pruning older wood, it may well convert older fruit spurs into lateral shoots. It may also send out shoots from much further back than the pruning cuts, or even from the trunk.
These converted fruit spurs should generally have much better (wider, stronger) branch angles than the usual narrow-angled (weak) internodes formed by the usual winter pruning.
In fact, when training young trees I often leave the leader for a couple of seasons in order to cause lower branches to subordinate to it and grow out sideways. Loss of the tip (leader) tends to result in several shoots competing and crowding each other to try to become the new leader, with weak, narrow, rot-prone branch angles.

Some varieties are easier to persuade to branch than others. Each variety has its unique growth habit. Some branch profusely, others branch sparsely. Some grow one-sided.

Trees which lack vigour (perhaps dwarfs or in poor soil) may send out only one or two shoots from the pruning cut. Trees with adequate vigour often have enough sapflow to power the growth of multiple shoots. Very vigorous varieties (such as Bramley) dislike branching - they are programmed to reach a very large size and they tend to space their branches accordingly (so as not to crowd what will eventually become their large canopy), which can mean very sparse branching when grown on dwarf roots.