Apple Tree advice

[youngandkeen]

Oh and yes they held onto the tree very well

[FB.]

Oh and yes they held onto the tree very well

You probably have a late-1800's heritage variety called Gascoyne's Scarlet. Not very common nowadays, so take care of it. It's very unlikely to ever attract commercial attention, so your tree will go a long way to ensuring the survival of this valuable old variety.

Having said that; Gascoyne's Scarlet is a rugged and very vigorous tree which doesn't generally need much help, other than general tidying every couple of years.

When pruning, consider that it bears a substantial amount of fruit on the tips of the younger branches. That's why your tree has very little fruit this year.

[FB.]

OK, now Im thinking were they brown spots or scabs, my inexperience I'm afraid is showing.
Im thinking back and yes when we picked them we were questioning these brown spots on them. I am saying they had scabs as when attempting to do some sort of research on brown spots on apples the results I was getting was they must be scabs! Does that make sense?

Gascoyne's Scarlet can suffer from scab in some areas and some seasons, but it also often has large brown dots on the skin which are called lenticels and serve as pores for gas exchange.

Scab tends to cause the skins to split and often has a slightly blackish hairy centre where the fungal spores are produced.

[youngandkeen]

FB you are amazing thank you so so much.
I will do my best to look after it and will take on board everything you have said.
Can I send you a picture once we have cut it back just to check we`ve done it right, would that be ok?
And thank you for clarifying what scab is!

[FB.]

I would suggest that a renovation of the tree is spread over a few years.

The variety itself is quite tough, so don't be too afraid, but equally don't assume that it's invincible.

Follow a few general guidelines:

1.
Where possible, avoid pruning cuts which are more than an two inches in diameter - and preferably not more than one inch. This means smaller wounds which the tree can heal more quickly and therefore less chance of the (dead) wood deep inside the trunk rotting.

2.
During this month, remove shoots which have grown this year, and which are also growing virtually straight up.

3.
Since your tree is a tip-bearer, you need to be careful that winter pruning doesn't remove most of the following season's crop. Shorter shoots are more likely to have a fruit bud on the end.
Long upright shoots should not be kept unless they are needed to replace a diseased branch (they'll usually droop over after several years due to weight of fruit).
Keeping the tree fruiting while being renovated over the next few years will help to channel some of its vigour into fruit instead of fighting back at the pruning.

4.
Never remove more than about a quarter of the structure of a mature tree in one calendar year, unless there is some kind of emergency where the tree is in severe danger of death.