Where to Prune Apple Tree

Never been down that far south in Arkansas but NW Arkansas is a beautiful area of the country.
Completely different down here - rolling piney woods county as opposed to NW AR in the Ozark Mountains. Much friendlier fruit tree country in that part of the state
 
Can apple trees this size be pruned in the spring now or is that not a good idea? Its still been below freezing here many nights.

Ive noticed a lot of my 2-3 yr old trees have low branches at 3 feet or so that are rubbing on the cages so bad. Should I just be cutting those off now, or wait till this coming fall?

Thanks
 
I would say it’s fine to do it now. I usually prune late winter to early spring. I do believe I’ve read an article that summer pruning promotes earlier fruiting and winter or dormant season pruning promotes vegetative grown in apples and pears. Stone fruit should only be pruned in the summer.
 
I’d wack almost all of that tree and start fresh. In the grand scheme of things you’ll be better off in 5 years
 
I would be very careful not to get the herbicide on the trunk.
Dont have to worry about rodents - none here but a few tree squirrels.

Speaking of gly - do you protect the trunk on these young trees when sprayng?

I have sprayed Gly on the trunks of apple trees many, many times with no ill-effects. I do it every year. Not that I am trying to spray Gly on the stem of the tree, but I don't worry about it if I do. Been doing it since I planted my first apple tree in 1995 and have never killed a tree.

Training the tree - which is what I believe is a more appropriate term for new trees and I do it very aggressively. Those bottom 3 or 4 branches and at least one competing leader would have been gone the same day I planted the tree. More unwanted laterals and lower branches would be gone by late summer and by the end of the following year it would pretty much be done and looking like I want it to look like - one central leader with maybe 4-6 lateral scaffolds.

My philosophy is "Why allow branches to compete for nutrients and water that the main stem and branches could be utilizing when you know you don't want those branches there in the first place". If there is a branch there that needs to be removed, I remove it and the sooner the better.
 
Last edited:
I have sprayed Gly on the trunks of apple trees many, many times with no ill-effects. I do it every year. Not that I am trying to spray Gly on the stem of the tree, but I don't worry about it if I do. Been doing it since I planted my first apple tree in 1995 and have never killed a tree.

Training the tree - which is what I believe is a more appropriate term for new trees and I do it very aggressively. Those bottom 3 or 4 branches and at least one competing leader would have been gone the same day I planted the tree. More unwanted laterals and lower branches would be gone by late summer and by the end of the following year it would pretty much be done and looking like I want it to look like - one central leader with maybe 4-6 lateral scaffolds.

My philosophy is "Why allow branches to compete for nutrients and water that the main stem and branches could be utilizing when you know you don't want those branches there in the first place". If there is a branch there that needs to be removed, I remove it and the sooner the better.
No problem with growing season pruning?
 
Gly dont hurt the trunk. I second that. I am dealing with older trees some brainiac used a weedwhacker on for years... No premium cambrium here....... For a few years I'd hand cut the weeds on my knees. forget that, hose em'

You read on pruning they say 20% winter or 30% summer. Cant speak for young trees, but I prune in the summer because Im not always sure how alive a dead an older tree section is.

I took an older healthy, likely never pruned apple tree and almost cut it in half. Took the top 10-12ft of a 20-25ft tall apple tree. 1 cut prune that year. 2nd year a few apples, likely was recovering. 2nd year a boatload of apples.
 
No problem with growing season pruning?
I typically prune them/train them heavy on the same day that I plant them (About May 1). Next training/pruning would be late August/early September - I will remove maybe 2-5 more branches. The next Spring I will remove more. I have done this successful for many years without issue. Other than the very first pruning on the day the tree is planted I try not to remove more than 25% of the branches at any one time.

Here is an example. I planted these 5 Red Wealthy's around May 1st of 2017. This photo was taken a little over 3 years later in September of 2020. There are no branches within 4-5 feet of the ground and most all of the other lateral scaffolds have been removed. These trees are pretty much trained into what I want them to look like when they mature. Only light pruning will be needed in the future. I know I shouldn't have allowed all of those apples to grow on these young trees - My Bad. I probably had already removed about 50 apples per tree from them that summer.

IMG_4126.jpg
 
I typically prune them/train them heavy on the same day that I plant them (About May 1). Next training/pruning would be late August/early September - I will remove maybe 2-5 more branches. The next Spring I will remove more. I have done this successful for many years without issue. Other than the very first pruning on the day the tree is planted I try not to remove more than 25% of the branches at any one time.

Here is an example. I planted these 5 Red Wealthy's around May 1st of 2017. This photo was taken a little over 3 years later in September of 2020. There are no branches within 4-5 feet of the ground and most all of the other lateral scaffolds have been removed. These trees are pretty much trained into what I want them to look like when they mature. Only light pruning will be needed in the future. I know I shouldn't have allowed all of those apples to grow on these young trees - My Bad. I probably had already removed about 50 apples per tree from them that summer.

View attachment 42478

Those look great! What rootstock are those on? Is it some kind of dwarf or is that variety just very precocious?

I start training my trees a month or so after I plant my grafts, rubbing off low buds and getting them trained to grow up from the start. When I buy nursery trees I also trim off some low stuff if they have it and discourage any new low branches if they pop any the first couple years. Within the first three years mine shouldn't have much of anything growing beneath the top of their cages except for the trunk. Most of mine are wildlife trees so I want the fruit up higher 4' or better so it can drop naturally when the tree is mature and not get picked off early by whatever comes by or risk broken branches...and if I choose to mow I have plenty of room underneath.
 
Those look great! What rootstock are those on? Is it some kind of dwarf or is that variety just very precocious?

I start training my trees a month or so after I plant my grafts, rubbing off low buds and getting them trained to grow up from the start. When I buy nursery trees I also trim off some low stuff if they have it and discourage any new low branches if they pop any the first couple years. Within the first three years mine shouldn't have much of anything growing beneath the top of their cages except for the trunk. Most of mine are wildlife trees so I want the fruit up higher 4' or better so it can drop naturally when the tree is mature and not get picked off early by whatever comes by or risk broken branches...and if I choose to mow I have plenty of room underneath.
Unfortunately I don't know what rootstock they are on and neither does the distributor I buy them from. I get them from a guy in WI who gets them from a nursery in MN. I've asked him before but he doesn't know and doesn't care to look into it.

I have never planted any dwarfs and have planted few Semi Dwarf. The vast majority of the trees I planted are from Standard (full size) rootstock - I just don't know what varieties.
 
When I was able to afford or should say had only a few dozen trees in cages I had the cages pretty huge. With deer trees, I would leave a few lower scaffold branches on for the sole purpose of keeping the bucks off the main trunk. I think there can be a reason to keep some lower branches. But that is about it. On those trees once I pulled the cages after about ten years those branches did well to keep the bucks from rubbing the trees.
Now due to the number of trees and the price of t posts and rewire my cages are much smaller and I have to take off all those lower branches. In an ideal world what is important about the laterals are good crotch angles proper spacing and limbing up allows closer mechanical weed control. I do notice on those older trees with lower branches I get a canopy effect that has shaded out almost all the weeds/grasses under the trees which in turn keeps rodents away that I will likely not get with my higher up pruned trees.

My biggest tree mistakes have been not being aggressive at pruning and more aggressive at training better crotch angles. You will find out in time those tight angles we get from those smaller cages will be headaches later in your trees lives with nasty breakages.
 
After reading through this thread, It seems most guys would have pruned off one of these two as well huh?

IMG_7194.jpg
 
"Snip"pidy doo da
 
Top