Subject: [NAFEX] apple questions - espallier distance
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 14:45:40 -0600
For the question from Thomas on how far apart to plant trees for espallier,
I don't think there is necessarily one answer. It depends on what you want
to accomplish. The only way I know to help is to describe my orchard. Hope
this note doesn't come out too long. My whole orchard is on post and 4-wire
trellis, top wire a couple inches short of 7 ft. The plan was to avoid
ladder work for the most part and fit in as many different apple varieties
on their own rootstock as possible. I planted a lot of Mark rootstock and
others to be trained as oblique cordon with bamboo stake support to set the
angle. Mark was the hot rootstock of the day at the time I grafted, and I'm
still very happy with it 10 years later. Also have some Ott-3, Bud-9 (both
very nice), M7, Bud-9, Antonovka, and a few other random rootstocks and
interstems. P22 and M27 samplles were found to be far too weak for my use
here in Colorado arid conditions, even with vigorous variety. Initially I
planted the Mark oblique cordons 4 ft apart, but found this wasn't filling
the space well, so I grew a second oblique arm for each of these trees, and
some of these second arms are now grafted to second varieties. Later trees
were planted at 2.5 feet for the oblique cordons. Trees are usually willing
to fill the space on Mark. Some varieties are more vigorous, need a lot of
pruning (even on Mark), others quite happy in the space. Constant pruning
struggle to keep the Antonovka and M7 in oblique cordon form. Good thing I
like to prune. One attempt at formal espallier on Mark grew the 4 arms on
each side but didn't have enough vigor to fill out the upper arms to 6 feet
long apiece before it runted out. M7 with 6ft arms is probably going to be
fine, giving a row spacing of 12 feet. I have one "production" row with
trees formed as informal espallier, kind of a cross between formal multi-arm
espallier and fan forms. Most of these are at 10 to 12 feet apart. One tree
on Antonovka had no problems filling a 20 foot space and woud probably have
taken more if I let it. In hindsight, if I were to do this over, I would run
cordon for the entire production row instead of informal espallier, which
would allow fine tuning of production volume vs. interest. Fully oblique
cordon would also probably give more production. My 20-footer was Black
Oxford that I had a lot of hope for, but turned out not interesting enough
to grant the whole 20 feet. That tree is in process of being changed over by
topworking to Bramley's Seedling which is very interesting here. Leaving a
couple branches Black Oxford too. The other hindsight is that the trees on
oblique cordon get heavy, and the oblique trees aren't helping much to hold
up their own weight, so attachment to the wires is critical. Maybe I should
have run vertical cordons so the trees themselves can help the support. Way
too late to make that adjustment now.
Hope this discussion helps a little. Jackie can pick this up as an article
if she likes.
Pete Tallman
5690 Steeplechase Dr.
Longmont, CO
[NAFEX] apple questions - espallier distance,
Pete Tallman, 10/24/2005