Basal cluster

[keble]

I know what a basal cluster is. But what does it mean if laterals on an espaliered pear have no basal clusters? All pruning instructions refer to the basal cluster but I'm stumped (hah) as to what to do on those laterals where there are none. Grateful for any advice.

[devonuk]

Good question. Presumably the bottom 3 leaves started life as a basal cluster but moved away from the trunk, and each other, as the lateral grew. So you can either count from the 3rd leaf up, or from the bit where lateral meets trunk, or split the difference between the two. I don't think it is that precise an art that you can go too badly wrong.

[nickdub]

Any chance of posting a photo of the branch in question ? May be easier to make a sensible comment after a look at it.

[keble]

Photo from April 2016 - Hope that is large enough to see. I tried to take one this morning but it was still all very wet from heavy rain.

[keble]

Here's the photo from this morning:

[nickdub]

Thanks for the photos - looks all pretty healthy to me.

I'll preface by saying I have next to no practical experience managing espaliers - so I'll defer to anyone who knows better on this. That being said looking at the recent photo I'd say the growth so far isn't a spur yet, but may develop in to one - so my advice would be to leave it alone for the time being.

The tricky thing with espaliers is to get the lower branches to develop because of apical dominance. You may sometimes have to bend the top of the tree over temporarily to get it to put more effort in to the lower branches, also I believe some people graft spurs from higher up the tree down to fill blanks in places on lower branches. All depends on how much effort and time you want to put in I suppose.

[Lardman]

You still need to summer prune it

Here's ideally what you want from your espalier, a fruiting spur on the tier.


More often than not in my experience you get a branch, summer pruning it back with encourage spur formation next year, but not from the tier but the branch stub you leave.

Here's a stub I pruned last year, you can see a spur has formed below the cut in what was a leaf node and also above on this years growth.



This year I will probably prune just above the first spur as I like to keep the espalier tight.

[Martin H]

This year I will probably prune just above the first spur as I like to keep the espalier tight.

Please could you expand on this a bit? I did some summer pruning on my own espalier last week and I wonder if I should have been a bit more aggressive - I just cut off all the new growth down to 3 or 4 inches. The shape is, well, a bit fuzzy:



When would be the best time to do some remedial pruning and chop back some of the longer sidegrowths? And do you have any advice on how to decide on exactly where to make the cuts?

Sorry OP for the slight hijack, but I dare say any responses could be helpful to you in time...

[Lardman]

I remember your original thread well Martin.

If you leave 3-4" each season you're going to get fuzzy very quickly What and why to cut are linked. I've let a few trees run away and get very fuzzy - I've had to take drastic action to bring them back.

This is what I do now, it's not necessarily the right thing but it works for me.

If the 3-4" bits are above a fruiting spur why leave them, the tree can only support so much fruit and it's already doing it on that stub, you don't want to encourage fruit away from the tier, ie on the end of the 3-4" you have left. Cut it back to the spur, or 1 leaf above if you're worried about dieback.

If there's no bud 3-4" is a lot to leave, you need to shock the tree into budding up, either in what's left of the year or next year. Take it back to 2-3 leaves.

[keble]

Thanks for the question, Martin H and for the answer, Lardman. I was told 'summer' pruning actually refers to late summer or early autumn, when wood has hardened. When do you summer prune, Lardman? My London garden is very sheltered so the timing may differ from you in Worcestershire. So what to do with those laterals without basal clusters? Cut back to a ouple of inches and hope to shock the tree? There are some fruiting spurs, as shown in your photo but not as many as I'd like....

[Lardman]

Im forever tinkering with my trees although I'd normally do the main prune around the end of the month, there will be a mixture of semi-ripe and soft wood.

With regards to where to cut the blind branch, it's not the length you want to consider, but the number of nodes, you want things to happen at the first node, the more nodes you leave the more chance you'll get a flower bud but the higher the chance it won't be where you want it.

Cut back to a ouple of inches and hope to shock the tree?

If they were mine - I'd cut them back to 2 leaf nodes, now. If you get buds forming wonderful, if not I'd keep rubbing out new growth until the tree got the message

[keble]

Ok, that's what I've done: cut back to two leaf nodes. Hope to be posting a photo next year of a fruit laden tree.....actually, I'd be happywith just a couple of pears at this point.