Espalier pear: horizontal tiers too close together?

[keble]

I splurged and ordered a two tier espalier pear from Ken Muir for Christmas. It arrived last week and I am concerned because the horizontal branches are only 9 inches apart. Everything I've read indicates they should be at least a foot apart, preferably more. Both branches had outgrown the bamboo support canes and were growing upwards so the tree looked like a double U form. I was able to extend the cane and tie the branches down. Am I supposed to try to force the branches further apart? I have had very satisfactory service from Ken Muir in the past and will obviously call and ask when they are back in business in the New Year. But meanwhile I am fretting and scouring the Internet for advice so thought I would come here and ask for help. Thank you in advance!

[boundtothesoil]

I'd have thought the nurseryman knew what he was doing in terms of branch separation. I've tried my hand at forming pear and cherry espaliers, not that successfully, because my horizontal branches always come out asymetrical and too far apart. So speaking partly out of ineptness, I'd be happy with a 9 inch separation because (a) the gap is wide enough such that that fruit hanging from the upper branch will not actually rub against the lower branch, provided the fruiting laterals/spurs are kept short, (b) you'll get more branches vertically up to your chosen height and (c) I prefer 'the look' of an abundantly foliaged, close-branched espalier tree, for example, against a wall, rather than a sparsely branched, potentially spindly one.

[rustylady]

I think 9 inches will be fine. Obviously you will be growing the tree on, and you can then (if you wish) choose the branches which will form the new "arms" at whatever spacing you want.

[FB.]

Why is nine inches a problem?
Is it simply because some armchair fruit grower once wrote a book which said "Thou shalt have espalier arms at one-foot spacing"?

How big is the espalier intended to become?
What's your soil like?
What's the variety and rootstock?

The above three questions are far more important than how far apart the branches are, since if the rootstock is too strong or too weak for your soil you'll struggle to get what you want from it.
Similarly: certain varieties do not grow well as espaliers while certain varieties are perfect for that style of growing.

Branch spacing can be whatever you want it to be. If it looks nice and is well-grown then there's not a problem.

Every fruit tree is an individual and it is very rare to get one to do exactly what you want. It's not easy to have every branch in exactly the right place, nor with exactly the ideal angle and of exactly the ideal length.

[FB.]

Of course, if the branches are at nine inches and you want eighteen inches; you can always cut every second one off to leave them at eighteen inches.

I still think that nine inches will be fine for many years to come. There's only be an issue with crowded branches and spurs when it gets old and large - with the branches having become very thick after many years of growth and carrying numerous spurs.
Of course, by that time some of the branches may have been broken, become diseased or simply died-back.

Here are a couple of pictures of several-decade-old apple espaliers (pears would be trained, pruned and managed in the same way, so would look basically the same as these).
The branches were spaced about 1ft apart when they were originally trained, but you'll see that even these are only approximate - not least because some branches thickened more than others. Even after about fifty years, the branches are not too awkwardly close - the spurs can be allowed to grow upwards, downwards, forwards or even backwards to fill the available space.

The first is Blenheim Orange MM106 (a particularly vigorous combination which inevitably would need plenty of room and careful training) and the second is a medium-vigour variety on MM106 which has lost some of its arms over the years.

.

[keble]

Thank you very much for all your replies. Very reassuring to hear that 9 inches doesn't seem too close to the knowledgeable posters here. Everything I have read advises much wider spacing but yes, I agree that the nursery must have known what it was doing. I will post again if the Ken Muir advisor has anything interesting to say.

[keble]

Oh, and wanted to add that Ken Muir describes its espalier stock as having horizontal branches 15 to 18 inches apart. 9 just strikes me as too close together to allow for good air circulation.

[FB.]

Thank you very much for all your replies. Very reassuring to hear that 9 inches doesn't seem too close to the knowledgeable posters here. Everything I have read advises much wider spacing but yes, I agree that the nursery must have known what it was doing. I will post again if the Ken Muir advisor has anything interesting to say.

The spacing of the arms might be due to the rootstock and variety (which you haven't mentioned).
It may be that the variety/rootstock combination will only make a dwarf espalier and so the nursery decided to scale-down the branch spacing to keep everything in proportion.
While a normal espalier in good soil might reach 12ft wide with four-inch-thick branches at 1ft branch spacing, maybe yours is only expected to reach 9ft wide, with three-inch-thick branches and so was given a proportionately smaller branch spacing to keep everything in prportion.

If you can tell us as much of the following as possible it would help a lot to decide whether what you have is suitable:

The variety.
The rootstock.
How big you intend it to get.
A picture of the espalier so we can see how it looks.

[FB.]

Oh, and wanted to add that Ken Muir describes its espalier stock as having horizontal branches 15 to 18 inches apart. 9 just strikes me as too close together to allow for good air circulation.

Air circulation will still be much better than on a bush-tree.
It'll only matter if the variety is one that is prone to disease - again, you haven't said which variety, although London is a slightly low-rainfall climate so dampness in poorly-circulating air is less likely than in wetter parts of the UK.

[keble]

It's a conference pear on Quince A rootstock, against a south facing wall. Due to structure of the wall, I want to keep the tree to a total height of five feet. I should add the tree is in a very large container. That is the experimental part of the project! I do appreciate the comments here.
I realize it would be easy enough to take out the top tier and retrain but this was an expensive purchase and I justified the cost by reasoning I was buying two years worth of training. So the thought of losing a tier fills me with dismay.

[FB.]

It sounds like you want a dwarfish espalier anyway, if you are limited to 5ft and plan to grow in a container. The nine-inch-spaced branches will probably be ideal for a restricted form of espalier.
If it was mine, I'd be completely satisfied with it as it is.

The wall will be quite dry near its base due to rain being blocked from one direction. Dry soil means a big reduction in vigour - Quince rootstocks in particular are very sensitive to soil moisture and dislike dry soil (Quince stock also dislikes alkaline/chalky soil).

Restricting the roots in a pot will mean you'll need to pay attention to adequate watering and feeding.
Pears will rot, undetectably, from the core outwards if they are grown on Quince rootstock without a steady adequate supply of water. Pears on vigorous pear stock (Pyrus communis) don't need much help and on drier soils will produce fruit of much better quality than Quince stocks.

[keble]

I rang Ken Muir Customer Service today and before I'd finished my question, the representative knew who I was and said she'd tried ringing me earlier in the day to discuss branch spacing - I'd emailed them over the Christmas break. Talk about personal service! She advised that the 15 to 18 inch spacing given in their pruning instructions were very much guidelines only and that 9 inches would be fine for my conference pear on Quince A rootstock. She said a lot of the training depended on which buds broke the best and advised waiting to top it until I could judge the buds in the Spring. Am not sure that I've used the correct terminology there but the chat with her gave me a great deal of confidence about how to proceed. Thanks again to posters here.

[orangepippin]

The reason for 18" spacing - which most nurseries use - is because on the typical semi-vigorous rootstock you should end up with a mature espalier with about 4 tiers fitting nicely into an average 6ft-7ft high fence panel. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course, but a 9" spacing might not look as attractive.

I wonder if you have actually received a fan rather than an espalier? A 9" spacing (at the stem) would then perhaps make sense, with the intention that the arms will radiate out at different angles. Fans may lack some of the ornamental appeal of espaliers but they are less effort to look after and more forgiving if things go wrong.

[keble]

Definitely an espalier, not a fan!

[BUFFS]

Why is nine inches a problem?
Is it simply because some armchair fruit grower once wrote a book which said "Thou shalt have espalier arms at one-foot spacing"?

How big is the espalier intended to become?
What's your soil like?
What's the variety and rootstock?

The above three questions are far more important than how far apart the branches are, since if the rootstock is too strong or too weak for your soil you'll struggle to get what you want from it.
Similarly: certain varieties do not grow well as espaliers while certain varieties are perfect for that style of growing.

Branch spacing can be whatever you want it to be. If it looks nice and is well-grown then there's not a problem.

Every fruit tree is an individual and it is very rare to get one to do exactly what you want. It's not easy to have every branch in exactly the right place, nor with exactly the ideal angle and of exactly the ideal length.

thanks FB for your expert opinion on the branch spacings,i had wondered about it,whether my branches were okay at about 9ins,i never thought that i would read that 9ins was a problem!!,live and learn...