I’m only growing the trees for deer hunting purposes only. I have a lot of Bud 118s. Some of my trees are about 4-6 years old and I hire a guy who manages an orchard to prune them yearly. What’s the max height you would keep these trees at? I should have asked him last month when he pruned them but I’ll get an answer from you experts . Also, should I have them pruned yearly still? He said I should when I asked, but he’s obviously making money from me for doing it.
Height of semi dwarf trees when I have them pruned?
- Thread starter BobinCt
- Start date
Peeps
5 year old buck +
I’m no expert but I’ll give my 2 cents. Keeping in mind that these are deer trees, not for your own harvest I’d say let them get as tall as they naturally want. Tall hanging fruit will fall on its own and feed the deer in a more spread out time line. I’m not sure how many trees or free time you have but pruning them yourself wouldn’t be too hard. They should be established now so pruning each tree shouldn’t take too long.
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
About 3 or 4 weeks ago, I asked the head of Penn State's horticulture / fruit tree group about pruning fruit trees for deer / wildlife. Without going into great details, he said take out dead-diseased-damaged-crossing branches as needed. He told me that if the scaffold branches are established with good crotch angles, I'd only need to prune probably every 3 years. Height of trees should be governed by IF I needed to pick the apples. If not, no need to keep trees short. ( I told him we have bears. Higher trees with thinner, flexible limbs won't support bears' weight - so apples are safer higher up. )
Native Hunter
5 year old buck +
I agree with what others here have said.
To me personally, it would be overkill to prune trees yearly in a wildlife setting. Also, when I prune it is not to affect the height of the tree. It is for shaping, thinning and removing crossing/rubbing limbs. I train to a central leader most of the time, and can't think of a reason to limit the height of my trees to any max height - unless as Bows said - picking them was a big factor.
To me personally, it would be overkill to prune trees yearly in a wildlife setting. Also, when I prune it is not to affect the height of the tree. It is for shaping, thinning and removing crossing/rubbing limbs. I train to a central leader most of the time, and can't think of a reason to limit the height of my trees to any max height - unless as Bows said - picking them was a big factor.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I concur as well. I want trees as large as possible for wildlife. Large trees can recover from all kinds of things. The reason we use semi-dwarf rootstock is because it is a good compromise. Trees first put their energy into vegetative growth and when they reach a certain stage of maturity they begin to fruit. A full sized tree takes longer to get to the fruiting stage than a semi-dwarf. A semi-dwarf generally gets large enough to be pretty self sufficient in a wildlife setting. Dwarf trees which produce fruit even faster often can't even support their own weight with fruit. Dwarf and Semi-Dwarf trees are easier to maintain and harvest in an orchard environment, but that doesn't matter in a wildlife environment. Pruning is done generally to allow more light to get to the interior of a tree which increases fruit productivity. That improvement may be valuable in an orchard setting, but much less so in a wildlife environment. Another reason pruning is done is to improve the form of the tree. Some trees produce so heavily that branches can break if the tree is not well formed. It may make sense to prune a young apple tree in a wildlife setting for form, but that is only when the tree is young.
Trees for an orchard have the objective of maximizing fruit production. This is generally not the objective in a wildlife setting. Generally we want fruit trees for attraction. They can play a role in feeding deer, but it is not cost effective to try to maximize the production of each tree. In general, one would simply have a few more trees to get the same overall production.
If I could get fruit as fast from a full size tree, that would be all I used.
Thanks,
jack
Trees for an orchard have the objective of maximizing fruit production. This is generally not the objective in a wildlife setting. Generally we want fruit trees for attraction. They can play a role in feeding deer, but it is not cost effective to try to maximize the production of each tree. In general, one would simply have a few more trees to get the same overall production.
If I could get fruit as fast from a full size tree, that would be all I used.
Thanks,
jack
Similar threads
