Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
I thought I posted this info here before, but maybe not. Mortenson asked me to post about this - so here goes.
I e-mailed a Penn State prof and asked him how to go about pruning apple trees for wildlife - not commercial production. I asked him if it's necessary to do all the pruning that is advised for commercial purposes. I also explained that our camp's trees won't be babied & handheld. He told me in a return e-mail that once the scaffold limbs are established, trained to good angles, and the trees are 6 years old or older, pruning could be likely be done every 3 years. Crossing limbs, rubbing limbs, dead or diseased limbs and water sprouts need to be pruned out as needed. He advised having bottom scaffold limbs at 5' above ground or higher. The central leader method gives the best light distribution into the tree.
This recommendation is for our camp situation, being - not a ton of constant attention like a home apple tree or commercial orchard.
That was basically his pruning advice for how often to prune for our camp wildlife trees.
I e-mailed a Penn State prof and asked him how to go about pruning apple trees for wildlife - not commercial production. I asked him if it's necessary to do all the pruning that is advised for commercial purposes. I also explained that our camp's trees won't be babied & handheld. He told me in a return e-mail that once the scaffold limbs are established, trained to good angles, and the trees are 6 years old or older, pruning could be likely be done every 3 years. Crossing limbs, rubbing limbs, dead or diseased limbs and water sprouts need to be pruned out as needed. He advised having bottom scaffold limbs at 5' above ground or higher. The central leader method gives the best light distribution into the tree.
This recommendation is for our camp situation, being - not a ton of constant attention like a home apple tree or commercial orchard.
That was basically his pruning advice for how often to prune for our camp wildlife trees.