Time turns the ugly duckling into the beautiful swan. In the worst case you can always chop at knee height and start over. But, my guess is there is some structure left you can build from. Its hard to say without seeing pictures however. Certainly I would not get new trees, you now have some nice established roots and will get much more vigorous growth this year. I have had many trees that looked completely malformed at some point, due to deer munching off half, fireblight taking out a ton, etc. Some of them have grown into bigger trees with nonstandard shapes, but they still have good light penetration and good fruiting branches. Scott

Good question. I recently bought a place with a good hobby orchard (24 trees, mostly apples). The previous owner had sprayed with Bonide. I was reluctant to spray, and didn't do any until one day I noticed some big ugly bugs devouring the leaves of three of the most recently planted (about 5 or 6 feet tall) trees. I freaked. I got out the Bonide and blasted 'em. Bill

Hi Jiver! I live north of Detroit and also have a HoneyCrisp. This is its fourth year of life. The first year that it fruited we had about five gorgeous and tasty apples (that is all it gave us). Last year it was full of apples, but it was also full of every pest and fungus known to Michigan apples (Cedar Apple Rust, flyspeck, Plum Leaf Curculio, apple maggot, web worms, leaf roller, and more)! I was a newbie and had no clue how to prepare for it or what to do about it. This year I have read up and am hoping for better success. I want to avoid chemicals so am climbing uphill. I would love to keep up with you as we both attempt to keep our apples healthy to harvest so maybe we can learn from each other. I cleaned up every leaf and dropped apple, threw away all the bad apples from the tree, and carefully inspected the tree (often) for signs of bad leaves or bugs (which I pinched off upon discovery). I semi-thinned (left two or three on each bunch) my apples out a few weeks ago but hadn't yet learned about bagging. I sprayed it with copper soap and a soap spray distributed by Gardens Alive to control fungus. This method requires reapplication every 7 days AND after every rain. This is high-maintenance but not a big deal when you only have one tree. I just bagged my tree this week and noticed as I was out there that several of the baby apples had bug bites already. I am afraid this means they've been parasitized, so I clipped them off and threw them away. I thinned to only one or two apples on a bunch and bagged all that looked healthy. I hated to clip off all those with bug bites, but I should still have over 100 large apples to harvest. I think next year I will be sure to bag it the week BEFORE Memorial Day since this week (the week following Memorial Day) there was a fairly high incidence of insect activity. I look forward to hearing of your success.

What you've got there is a canker, probably resulting from something funky happening with the one-time removal of a branch in that location, along with the presence of one or more canker-forming organisms-Neonectria is one genus which contains cankers affecting apple trees-which are able to kill bark and cambium. At this juncture, I'd have to ask, what is going on just below this on the trunk-the gob of tree paint, etc. And as long as I've asked, tree paint is neither recommended not needed when pruning trees, long-outmoded practice. Plus, please allow this young tree to develop some internal strength, mainly by getting rid of your network of sticks and struts and supports. It needs none of that. And I may as well add, it sounds to me as if you're over-pruning this tree. Remember, the primary response of a tree-especially a young and vigorous tree-to pruning is the formation of new branches, Many of these will be suckers, those ultra-fast-growing stems that grow straight up through the tree's crown, almost always interfering with or rubbing against some other scaffold branch. I would recommend you do nothing, beyond giving the tree the basics-adequately moist soil to function well, no abusive pruning or wound-carving tactics, and time. In many cases, trees are able to outrun cankers, and this looks to me like it could be one such case. Regardless, I'm not aware of any fact-based methodology to deal with this-except in going forward, and learning good pruning practice, etc.