I usually don't bother spreading Goldrush as branches tend to spread all by themselves. I think you may be spreading them too much- shoot for 65 degrees or so. If they are close to horizontal they'll runt out and Goldrush needs to be coaxed to maintain vegetative vigor- it's a spur monster (early fruiter with low vegetative vigor).

Of course, you have far to many scaffolds for the ultimate structure of the tree but Goldrush is a reluctant secondary brancher so you'll probably want to run with more of them than you would with something like a Fuji.

Because it's a young tree the extra scaffolds are fine, and it's hard to find a balance between helping a tree develop secondary branching which more light helps and getting the tree to size as soon as possible which is done by pruning as little as possible. I work on that balance every day and still struggle with it.

Every variety is different. I'm buying some Promelin this year to paint the scaffolds of reluctant secondary branchers.

When determining the necessity of branch spreading consider the precosity of the variety. For pear trees spreading is almost mandatory as it is for varieties like Fuji and Norther Spy. Spurry types like Goldrush, Empire and Ark Black can often be left alone.

Wow jayco, I wish I had half your energy! Your trees must think they're in tree heaven.

Thank you, Harvestman. Your advice has really been very helpful. So I should maybe loosen those ties and shoot for 65 degrees, and other than than you'd say leave it alone for now? Or would you prune a couple of those smaller middle branches out?

Bhawkins, thanks, but the truth is I only have this one baby tree to prune, so, like an only child, it gets too much attention!

I'd go ahead and leave the extra branches for now. I'm just saying it's not a cut and dried recommendation.

I understand, thank you. Seems like not much is ever cut and dried with pruning.

So when would you guess I might need to prune a few of them out? Next year? A couple more years?

Certainly when it starts bearing in a couple. Study the tree when it's in full leaf- all bearing parts should get at least 30% light. If you have any commercial orchards around check out the trees now and notice how few scaffolds are in the mature trees. Notice how far apart in feet are the tiers of scaffolds.

A young tree always looks like it can keep a lot more scaffolds well lit than turns out to be the case. As long as you observe where your best fruit forms you will gradually learn how much sun exposure it takes to get best fruit.

As a matter of fact just this afternoon I drove through an area with many orchards, and I did take the opportunity to examine their trees, many of them recently pruned. You're right: I was surprised at just how radically they are pruned. Mature trees with perhaps a dozen big branches and maybe four feet or more in between the scaffolds.

It's been very interesting for me to experience this process, and I'm sure I'll be back here with more questions at each new stage.

Thanks again, your advice is most appreciated.

Yes, looking over commercial orchards helped me a lot in figuring out how far to space the tiers, amongst other things. They also show you that trees don't need to look like the ones in the manual to be productive as long as they are open enough to allow good light penetration.