Pruning Question

[Diesel5610]

3 second year bear cubs have been terrorizing our property and have snapped the central leader off a Dolgo on MM111. The break is not clean and is right at the point that the first set of scaffold limbs branch off. Not sure if I should leave it, prune the whole thing back and wait for a new leader or try and prune and save any of the limbs that I can. Was looking at it yesterday and thinking about what want to do and thought I would snap a picture and look for other opinions. Tree was doing great and had a bunch of apples which attracted my buddies.

 

[homerj1]

Clean up the broken wood with sharp instruments as best you can and grow it as an open center tree. https://www.starkbros.com/growing-guide/article/open-center-pruning-fruit-trees

 

[Diesel5610]

I hadn’t thought of that for some reason. I actually have a Franklin that went through the same injury a few years ago and I am doing just that. That Franklin actually looks pretty good. I guess the only thing that concerns me with this tree is there is kind of a split down the center of the trunk for an inch or two. If I tied it together at the top would that grow together and heal over?

 

[homerj1]

If I tied it together at the top would that grow together and heal over?

Maybe, maybe not. One way to find out

 

[Prof.Kent]

Prune off as much dead wood as you can so it heals over faster. Wax the crack to keep water and dirt out of the crack..
Let it grow to an open center. It might send up a central leader next year from the damage area. f it does you an prune of all the lower branches if you want.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Personally if it was mine I would cut it off at knee high next spring and bark graft in a couple scions from the branch tips. That jagged break is going to be very difficult to clean up due to how deep it split past the scaffold. You are going to be much happier long term with regrowing that tree. With an established root base like it has you are going to have good size pretty quick.

 

[Diesel5610]

Personally if it was mine I would cut it off at knee high next spring and bark graft in a couple scions from the branch tips. That jagged break is going to be very difficult to clean up due to how deep it split past the scaffold. You are going to be much happier long term with regrowing that tree. With an established root base like it has you are going to have good size pretty quick.

I have bench grafted the last few years and have become pretty decent at it, but I have never tried this type of grafting. I like the idea of this and think I might give it a go. You now have me thinking about trying this with a 25 year old Liberty tree that the Sapsuckers have girdled about 1/3 of the way up the tree. Tree has died above the girdle obviously and is going to need something done this winter/spring. I was wondering how to salvage that tree and after looking at it this morning I think maybe cutting it off about 4ft high and bark grafting onto it may be a good idea.

 

[cavey]

My vote is cleft/branch graft and be done....

Turkey creeks answer is likely the best for two reasons, maybe more, IMO. The established root system is a huge bonus to bark grafting a scion. If that fails the tree will likely try and shoot suckers up which you could graft too as well. It is to bad all the lateral branches are coming off at one point (another reason to encourage scaffold branching at differing intervals but it is what it is.) you could have bench grafted above that and had the lowest branch as a security measure. Im always nervous about a complete cut off. I just do not think you would have a clean enough site to get in there and bark graft to even if you cut through at an angle.


I am a believer that apple trees can look ugly if need be. I even thought you could try and pull over the main trunk a bit and gently so to speak pull that Right branch into a more upright position (branches dont often like being forced into a central leader role) but you never know with trees. Then you could try and clean up the wound site and leave that one lower left branch and see what happens. Otherwise you really would have an open concept tree which does work but the wound is just nasty looking and likely will be a mess to heal.

Good news is its not dead and you will get a second ooops third chance ... good luck

 

[chickenlittle]

Not sure why the suggestion to re-graft. If you liked the tree, just cut off below the damage/crack. It’ll push new growth next spring from buds below the cut. You’ll just need to choose which one will be the new leader.

Same with the old Liberty. Cut off below the sapsucker damage and it’ll turn itself into a new tree. No need to graft anything.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

If it's any help - I had a Dolgo have the same thing happen to it by a young bear. I'm letting it grow as is to see what sprouts on it's own. We had a Winter Wildlife crab suffer a central leader break-off by a bear ( or deer on it's hind legs - young tree 3rd leaf ), and I let that one grow. The WW crab pushed a bunch of new vertical sprouts and I'll pick a new leader from them this coming spring.

Once the root system gets established, the trees will push new growth rather than just roll over & croak. FWIW.

 

[Diesel5610]

Having bears I have a lot of ugly trees. I clean them up and let the tree do what it wants to do. I do have a few elephant man trees that do great And throw plenty of apples. This tree was the first one I have had that didn’t have an obvious pruning solution to me,. The plan for the Liberty was to cut it off and let a new shoot take over but might try grafting a Franklin on it, I have a ton of Liberty and my Franklins are getting knocked off one by one. I figured this would be a good discussion thread and resource for people in the future.

 

[cavey]

Not sure why the suggestion to re-graft. If you liked the tree, just cut off below the damage/crack. It’ll push new growth next spring from buds below the cut. You’ll just need to choose which one will be the new leader.

Same with the old Liberty. Cut off below the sapsucker damage and it’ll turn itself into a new tree. No need to graft anything.

I think he could do both cut scion from the branches on the existing tree and do the bark graft, if the tree pushes new growth from a trunk bud site its bonus as well; he could pick and choose what he wants to be the leader. In this case I would so much call it regrafting especially if he can harvest some scion from the same tree, if their making that heading cut they might as well stick some scion into it just incase nothing pops out above the graft union on the trunk for new growth.

 

[chickenlittle]

They will always push buds that will grow faster than whatever you graft onto it. Those buds are just sitting there waiting to go. Nothing to heal up or slow transition of nutrients to fuel it taking off if. If you want to change to something else, you’ll have to remove that growth to let the new graft take over.

I’ve cut apples trees off as short as 8” and had multiple buds pushing that spring.