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  • From: Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Training Apple Tree
  • Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2009 7:57:47 -0500

This is a long post. My question is, who would you recommend I train or
prune the top of my tree, especially the leader.

I have a jonathan apple on M111. It's about 5-7 years old but has grown
slowly, having been shaded about half the day by a neighbor's oak.
(recently cut down) It now gets nearly full sun. It is probably less than
2" in caliper, and about 10' high.

It had grown somewhat crooked, both because it's a little floppy and
because it sought light. Last year I staked it and trained it to a single
central leader. It took a lot of tugging to straighten the trunk, but it
is mostly straight, now, with well-spaced scaffold limbs approximately
horzontal. The scaffolds are a lot lower (even below horizontal in some
cases) than they used to be, because the tree finally cropped and the
weight of the apples pulled everything down.

I didn't notice until late in the season that the tree's leader set a fruit
on its tip. So now I have a leader that goes straight up for 10 feet then
bends over to point down. A couple of side branches are groing up.

I don't really want it to get any higher, as it's already getting hard for
me to spray and tend the top. On the other hand, the top is out of reach
of the deer, so maybe I should let it get higher. But assuming I'd like to
discourage too much more upwards growth, how should I handle the top?
Prune all the upright side branches and leave the down-pointing leader?
Prune everything? Something else?

Happy spring
___
Ginda
eastern Mass., zone 6



  • [NAFEX] Training Apple Tree, Ginda Fisher, 04/02/2009

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