North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Scott Smith <scott@cs.jhu.edu>]

> > I also look at the spacing between the larger limbs. At something  
> like 2-3' above a joint I like to see the limbs 1' apart, and higher  
> up I like to see the limbs 2-3' apart.

> Could you rephrase that, Scott? I don't quite understand.

It may be hard to get this across without pictures.  Its just a rough  
measure of how much spacing I like to see between the larger limbs.  I  
should have mentioned  that my trees are nearly all pruned to  
something like a vase shape and are 6-8' tall.  They may be partial  
vases in the sense that a corner or a side may be missing; a few of  
the apples are in fact just Y's due to very close spacing of 1'.  Most  
of the major branching occurs at around 2-3' above the ground: the  
central stem goes off in several directions.  At around 2-3' above  
that (i.e. 5' off the ground) I want each prong of the vase to be at  
least 1' apart from the other prongs, and toward the top I like to see  
each major branch more like 2-3' apart.

Rather than taking my numbers  literally, I would instead say the best  
thing is to look at how far apart the various structural branches are  
at different heights, and make your own scale up over time as to what  
is the best distance, by observing how much light is getting into the  
tree.  If they are too close, simply remove one.  For my first five  
years  I left too many of these structural branches on my pears and  
plums, which made the trees too dense.

Re: the backyard orchard culture technique, I am overall very happy  
with the closely-spaced rows method but I did do them a bit too close  
in some cases.  Dwarf apples can be 2' apart and peaches are fine at  
3', but I would say full-sized apricots, pears and plums are best at  
4'.   The vase limb spacing guidelines above I also apply between  
different trees in a hedge (or a 4-in-1-hole): if a limb on one tree  
is too close to a limb on a neighbor tree, take out one of the two  
limbs.

Scott