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[John Barbowski <jbarbowski@gmail.com>]

For the last two years, I have been applying Lorette pruning techniques to my pear tree here in Thornhill (just north of Toronto - Cdn Zone 6B) and appear to achieving the desired results - jmb

On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 12:38 PM, Kieran &/or Donna <holycow@frontiernet.net> wrote:

I agree with Alan, I don't consider research done on dwarfing stocks to apply to standards.  My son in PNW kept talking about how many bushels of apples he'd gotten off the trees that came with his house.  I pictured the huge trees I have seen in parts of TN where apples do well.  When we went to visit, they were short lopped off things about 8 ft high, pruned like a table top with trunks maybe 4" in diameter.  You could see the weird lumpy joint where the MM9 rootstock met the scion.  I could TRY it here, but I'm not holding my breath.  I will however, try removing vigorous shoots from a few  of my mature pear trees this summer.  Donna