Fuji Apple Tip Bearing or spur fruiting?

orto

17 years ago

Hi Everyone,

I just planted a Fuji Apple.

I wanted to use it for espalier

However, I just read that it is Tip Bearing?

Is this true?, can it still be used for espalier?,

Any pruning advice for tip bearing apples greatly appreciated as my experience is with spur fruiting varieties.

Thanks again

Cheers

Sam

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Comments (5)

bernieeck
17 years ago
I don't believe it is tip bearing. Although it can have a tendency to produce a peripheral crop, so it is not always pruned like most spur apples.

I don't know it's suitability for espelier.
pitangadiego
17 years ago
Mine mostly flowered and fruited at the ends of the branches. It didn't matter if the branch was pruned, it still fruited at the bud closest to the end of the branch.

Good apples, held well on the tree in San Diego.
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To me, the entire tree is spur bound and is not putting out enough vegetative shoots to adequately serve the spurs. What I want to see is one year pencils of vegetative wood amongst the spur wood- upward shoots, usually between 6 and 12 inches long- sometimes longer depending on variety and other things. I don't have a mathematical formula for how many of these shoots are needed to serve how much spur wood- I should work on that, but I know it when I see it (or at least I have a false confidence that I do). With a tree like that I'd remove at least half the spur wood and give it some extra N to see if I could get it to grow more vigorously. Once you get those pencils growing you begin a cycle of them turning fruitful and eliminating older spurs while leaving some new pencils. Some varieties bear the best fruit on two year wood, some three and some are tip bearers. Most of the new varieties bear on very short spurs from two or three year wood. A tree with too many spurs and not enough pencils tends to be biennial and produce small less flavorful fruit.
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Muenchk: Dave Wilson indeed carries apple trees on seedling rootstock. Fuji is notoriously slow-bearing and took about 5 years on semi-dwarf rootstock to start bearing here. You will get onesie-twosies for a few years until it really starts going; it will bear reliably every year after that. There are advantages to seedling rootstock. Here in our brutal heat they are immune from most irrigation mishaps that will quickly kill less vigorous rootstocks. They can live a long time- 150 years is not uncommon. They recover quickly from damage, and are practically indestructible once established. They do not have to get 30 feet tall. I easily keep three seedling rootstock trees espaliered 5' high by summer pruning. One of them is a surrogate parent for cuttings I collect from heritage apple trees in the local mountains during the summer until I'm able to graft it onto rootstocks in the spring. Any bud or whip graft I do on it during the summer grows like a rocket and I have a nice 6' long piece of scionwood by fall. Applenut
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applenut_gw
17 years ago
Go ahead and espalier it. It takes about 5 years to really start fruiting, but once it does, you can't stop it.

Most around our neighborhood are ignored and never pruned or are hacked back like a hedge with a gas-powered hedge trimmer. They fruit wonderfully anyway but usually all the beautiful fruit goes unpicked and drops on the lawn to rot and get hit with the lawnmower. Drives me crazy.
jellyman
17 years ago
Sam:

Yes, Fuji is normally known as a tipbearer, with the exception of a sport called "Fuji Spike" and possibly other more recent sports. My Fuji, one of the older strains, is certainly a tipbearer. The best way to deal with a tipbearing apple tree is to prune it only in late summer. This should help to force some of the fruiting spurs to develop inward. Dormant pruning of the branch tips will reduce fruiting and encourage vegetative growth.

I don't see a reason why you should not use a Fuji for espalier if you summer prune.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA
Bee
4 years ago
I've been considering a Fuji apple tree for espalier. I see this is a very old thread. I'd love to know if you attempted it and if it worked out! If I bother to espalier, i definitely want fruit throughout, not just at the ends... Thank you!

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Fuji Apple Tip Bearing or spur fruiting?

Comments (5)

bernieeck

pitangadiego

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applenut_gw

jellyman

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