Pruning fruit trees

[Bowsnbucks]

I love my trees, but I dont mess with their crotches.

 

[PatinPA]

Plums can be pruned to just about any shape you want. But if you cut it back to a nub, it will grow like a bush, so be prepared to make it a multi-year project.

One of trees has black knot all over it. That one I'm afraid will have to be cut way back. Which sucks because it was probably the nicest tree out of four. It even has black knot on the trunk which I've read that you can gouge out. I'm going to try that rather than cut it down to a 3 foot nub. Then hit it with fungicide in the spring.

 

[Wild Thing]

Crotch angles are very important IMO. When your trees mature and start producing heavy loads of apples you will wish you had trained them for strength. Angles of 45-60 degrees are best for supporting heavy loads of fruit. I cut spreaders out of lath and insert them to spread branches to these angles the same day I plant the tree usually. Within a year or 2 years at the most, the spreaders can be removed and the branch will continue to grow at the proper angle.


Spreading the scaffolds on a young tree. The bottom branch pictured here was removed later that summer...





I recently lost thousands of photos when my computer crashed and I didn't have them backed up and would liked to have posted photos of these trees when I planted them a year earlier, but here are 5 Red Wealthy's I planted in the spring of 2017. This photo was taken in August of 2019 - a little over 2 years later. Note that all of the lower branches have been removed, most scaffold branches have been removed (4 or 5 is plenty), and crotch angles are where I want them and the spreaders have been removed. After this I am mainly concerned with trimming back scaffolds so that they don't grow too far out and trimming the central leader so it doesn't grow too tall too quickly...



Same trees at 3 years old...



September of 2020 - 3 years after planting. I sort of abused these young trees. Most of these apples should have been removed early on, but this just shows how an apple tree can produce when it is property trained. My philosophy is ... "Why keep a branch that I know I will not want when the tree matures"? I don't want any branches any closer than 4-5 feet above ground level and I only want 4 - 5 main scaffold branches on a mature tree so I start removing unwanted branches the day I plant the tree. Later that summer I will remove more branches until within 2-3 years I have the tree shaped the way I want it to be for the remainder of its life. Why feed an unwanted branch with nutrients that can be better utilized by a branch that you do want to keep?



Sept 2020...



Only 4-5 main scaffolds...and I top the trees at about 12' so I don't have to do much work on a ladder...



You don't need many scaffolds to produce a lot of apples...

 

[g squared 23]

I start with dead/diseased/rubbing wood and then anything growing towards the center of the tree first. Next anything lower than I want goes, and then I act like I’m creating some scaffold branches after that. I picture what everything will look like with leaves on, and keep it roomy enough that air can flow through and sunlight can reach my branches. Then off to the next one. No stress, the critters don’t care about ugly trees, and I’m not making a living out of this.


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[BrushyPines]

I start with dead/diseased/rubbing wood and then anything growing towards the center of the tree first. Next anything lower than I want goes, and then I act like I’m creating some scaffold branches after that. I picture what everything will look like with leaves on, and keep it roomy enough that air can flow through and sunlight can reach my branches. Then off to the next one. No stress, the critters don’t care about ugly trees, and I’m not making a living out of this.


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How high do you usually leave your lowest branches?

 

[Wild Thing]

No stress, the critters don’t care about ugly trees, and I’m not making a living out of this.


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LOL - None of us are making a living out of these deer trees for sure. Pretty or Ugly is one thing, but structural integrity is another - no matter how the tree looks. I have certainly made my share of mistakes over the years so my focus these days is training an apple tree to be as strong as I can make it. Deer and bears can damage or kill a tree in minutes. I try to minimize damage by removing the lower branches and creating strong crotch angles. More recently I have focused on trimming back new growth each year to prevent the scaffolds from growing outward too far.

Here are some examples of issues I have had with weak crotch angles and scaffold branches too long to support the weight of the fruit:





If you have to prop up a scaffold branch with a 2X4 the branch is too long...



The top also broke out of this one because another branch had broken off a few years prior and there was a weak spot in the central leader...



I cut it back and grafted onto the stem the next spring...





But it will take a long time before I get any fruit from this tree again...



Low branches are just going to be damaged by the critters so I just remove them early on. They will eventually droop down under the weight of the fruit but you can at least minimize the damage. Of course, I have learned to thin out the fruit to a reasonable amount to minimize stress on the trees as well.







IMO it is a lot easier to train a tree from the day it is planted. You can get it to where it should be much quicker and you can build the strongest tree possible so that it may be able to survive some of the damaging events it will no doubt experience throughout its life time.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

SUPER posts, Wild Thing!!! Excellent points. I use the same limb spreaders as you showed in post #23. Easy & cheap to make. Your pics show the possibilities of what can happen with fruit loads and deer / bears. I need to do heading cuts to many of our apple limbs again this spring. Don't want them too long and "whippy."

Thanks for posting all these pics.

 

[TreeDaddy]

Wild Thing's posts are LickCreekesque in their photos/description

Lotta great tips

many thanks

bill

 

[Wild Thing]

SUPER posts, Wild Thing!!! Excellent points. I use the same limb spreaders as you showed in post #23. Easy & cheap to make. Your pics show the possibilities of what can happen with fruit loads and deer / bears. I need to do heading cuts to many of our apple limbs again this spring. Don't want then too long and "whippy."

Thanks for posting all these pics.

Wild Thing's posts are LickCreekesque in their photos/description

Lotta great tips

many thanks

bill

Thanks guys. I did read a lot of Lick Creek posts (RIP Paul) over the years. One thing I learned was that often times a picture is worth 1,000 words so I kind of followed suit.

 

[cavey]

Thanks guys. I did read a lot of Lick Creek posts (RIP Paul) over the years. One thing I learned was that often times a picture is worth 1,000 words so I kind of followed suit.

dbltree played a huge part in where I am today as far as land and habitat management - RIP Paul, so many new people here missed out on his knowledge and ethics on sharing what he knew. Nice to see he rubbed off on you! When I see his name mentioned makes me pretty sad.

Wildthing Im jealous of your enclosed orchard....

 

[4wanderingeyes]

I had just gotten started right before he died. I had read a bunch of his posts on his site, and I had a question for him, so I private messaged him, and his wife messaged me back and said Paul passed away yesterday, and he is finally pain free. Prior to this, I didn’t know he was sick, or in pain, I felt horrible, but it showed how much his followers meant to him, enough that his wife a day after he passed away, would respond to questions.

 

[Wild Thing]

Wildthing Im jealous of your enclosed orchard....

Thanks Cavey - Elaine and I erected that fence in 2008 and to this date (knock wood) we have not had any deer or bear damage in that orchard (25 apple trees and a raspberry patch). I sunk 12' 4X4's and strung 6 foot tall welded wire fence around it. I had planned on running a stand or two of horizontal Poly Tape above the welded wire but never got around to it. I am sure a deer could jump the 6' fence if it really wanted to but they never have so I could have gotten by with 10' posts . Surprisingly, bears have never tried to compromise this fence either (knock wood again)



By comparison, this is all that remains of a 20 tree orchard we planted in 1995 which is only 1/2 mile north of the fenced orchard. All of those trees were originally protected with 20' of 6' welded wire which provided some protection early on but eventually when they outgrew the enclosures the bears damaged them heavily. There are only 3 of the original 20 trees left - all of which have been damaged by bears several times over the years. I have replaced some of the damaged trees at least once and some of them twice over the years but have finally thrown in the towel. When these are gone, they are gone and I won't replace them there any more.





I got the bear breaking down this Honey Crisp tree on camera. He did this in only a minute or so after I had 5 years invested in it.









Bears even chew up the Impresso Tags I mark my trees with - why? I have no idea...



We have even stopped feeding the birds as the bears keep trashing the feeders.



If you don't have any bears around your orchard....consider yourself lucky.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

So with the trees all being fenced, I assume they arent for the deer, and wildlife?

 

[Wild Thing]

So with the trees all being fenced, I assume they arent for the deer, and wildlife?

The plan was to remove the fence once the trees got fully mature but we soon realized that the bears would still demolish the trees if we opened it up. We still have young trees in the orchard as well. Voles got us one year before we started putting welded wire screen around the trunk and they girdled a bunch of them which we had to pull and start over with new trees. Then the brutal winters of 2012-2014 killed all of our cherry trees so we pulled those and replaced them with apple trees.

We still tossed thousands of apples over the fence for the deer, but we also give a lot away. We do store some for a few months and Elaine freezes a lot for pies and dehydrates tons of them as well. So....the fenced in orchard is pretty much a "People Orchard" whereas the many trees we have out near the food plots are strictly wildlife trees.

Here is a link to a thread I posted on the Michigan Sportsman Forum regarding the Vole damage:

Are your apple trees protected? (16 photos)

Many of the trees will hold apples well into winter - Cortland especially, but also our Honey Crisp and Honey Golds - and the deer don't mind them at all. We are not allowed to feed deer here any more as they discovered one (allegedly) CWD positive deer in our county 3 1/2 years ago. Thankfully there have not been any more since they.



Those apples we don't use for People needs were tossed over the fence. I would toss 40-50 apples per day until they were gone. This photo was taken on February 9th and there were still a lot of apples.




Elaine has a veggie garden adjacent to the fenced orchard and it is fenced in as well...

 

[PrairieShadow]

That is the nicest Veggie garden I have ever saw! Great Work!

 

[Bowsnbucks]

If you don't have any bears around your orchard....consider yourself lucky.

Yes. Bears are a p.i.t.a. Great orchard set-ups. Trees look tremendous!!!

 

[Wild Thing]

That is the nicest Veggie garden I have ever saw! Great Work!

Thanks PS - Elaine loves it....but she spends all of her time in her garden now and I can't get her to help out with the food plots anymore. LOL

 

[PrairieShadow]

I need to prune some trees this winter I guess. I've never pruned any of them.

 

[BrushyPines]

Carry a spray bottle filled with alcohol to mist your tools between trees to prevent spreading disease from one tree to the next. Oz of prevention worth a pound of cure

Will the alcohol not harm the tree when pruning it with alcohol on the shears?

 

[blueKYstream]

I use antibacterial wipes. Might be another option.