North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

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

On Feb 26, 2012, at 11:18 PM, Steven Covacci wrote:
> 
> 
> I wonder why I can't find mature, time-tested examples of the Dave Wilson 
> approach, which is different from this plan.
> 

Steve, There are a few photos on the Dave Wilson site of older plantings.  
The use of this technique for backyard orchards has only been popular for 
about 20 years so you are not going to find much older.

Here is a good picture of a 4-in-1 cherry for example: 

http://www.davewilson.com/homegrown/BOCpix/4in1/dwnpix/ed-4n1_cherry.jpg

The guy in the picture is Ed Laivo, this whole thing was his idea and I think 
the tree he is standing "in" in the picture is one of his early experiments.  
This is also a great example of how to prune a 4-in-1, notice how there is 
nothing in the center so the tree is a true vase shape.  I don't think it 
looks unattractive, either.

Here is a hedgerow, this is the method I use:

http://www.davewilson.com/homegrown/BOCpix/hedgerows/hedgerow3.jpg

This one looks 6-8 years old, mine are 10 years old and my trees are 2.5' 
apart whereas these look to be a bit further apart.  It looks like they are 
pruning this one to make an upright hedge shape.  For my humid climate I 
would call this one too dense and I would thin out the number of branches in 
the interior of those guys.

Scott z7 MD