Bear damage

[NorthWI]

Had a few trees hit pretty bad by bears this fall. The 1st pic is a Ben Davis on Anty and the 2nd is a seedling apple. My question is what to do with them now. Not interested in grafting them because I like both of the tree's. I have come up with three options. Leave as is and maintain an open center, Leave as is and hope they send up a new central leader or this spring cut everything of below the lowest branch to promote a new central leader. Which option would you pick or any other thoughts.

 

[ruskbucks]

I had bears break off my central leader on a dolgo crab. It looked alot your picture. I just left it alone except for cutting the broken leader off and pruning every year. I had no apples for I believe 3 years, but there was probably over a 100 apples year this year. The dolgo came back really thick almost like a bush.

 

[NorthWI]

I had bears break off my central leader on a dolgo crab. It looked alot your picture. I just left it alone except for cutting the broken leader off and pruning every year. I had no apples for I believe 3 years, but there was probably over a 100 apples year this year. The dolgo came back really thick almost like a bush.

Thanks, I did make a clean cut on the central leader to cut it off.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

They like to prune my trees and make them ugly, but the trees still make apples, they just don’t look like trees. Cut off what they bust off it will come back.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

I simply clean up any jagged edges and let the tree grow how it wants. More often than not, the tree will balance itself off in time. Bears are really hard on trees, so I've given up trying to prune the trees to a central leader or anything close to that. Instead, I want the tree to have some extra branches so the next time a bear comes through I have some extra branches to spare.

 

[Peeps]

I had 8 apple trees in an opening near the back of my 40. Bears are assholes and have messed with everyone of those trees except 1. Some they broke clean off a few feet above the ground. They even messed with ones that had no apples on them. I gave up on those trees. I’ll still prune off the broken branches and we’ll see what they do but I’m done spraying them and won’t replant any back there. So far they haven’t messed around too much with the 25 I have behind the house.