Spur pruning apples

myk1

15 years ago

I've never done this and I need to.

My 20 year old spur type Cortland's spurs are extremely long.

What's the best way to do this without cutting off all of next year's fruit or making the spurs turn into branches?

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Comments (4)

fruitnut Z7 4500ft SW TX
15 years ago
myk1:

You can cut out or shorten some of the old spurs and hope new ones grow back. I'd try some of that and see what happens. But your tree sounds like a prime candidate for some renewal pruning. Cut out or cut back about 1/4 of the major limbs. You will get regrowth. That is your opportunity to use your horticultural skills to train some of the regrowth into new branches. If you remove 1/4 to 1/5 each yr for 4-5 yrs you will have a new tree with new spurs. That is the long term solution to your situation.

The Fruitnut
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myk1
Original Author
15 years ago
This is an espalier and only has 6 scaffolds covered with spurs (I guess I should've mentioned that).
I tried complete branch renewal with the non-spur type McIntosh next to it and it didn't work as hoped (in fact that tree is why I found this forum and searched for pruning tips to force spur growth).

I was wondering about what you described but pruning the spurs that don't bear (or get thinned) with summer pruning.
That would give them time to produce flower buds (hopefully) for the next year.
Since it's a spur-type I'm hoping it would be easier to convince to grow spurs than the one next to it.

Some of the long spurs have got broken picking apples. I should mark them and see what they do in the spring.
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Timing, timing, timing. I assume the Arkansas Black is a spur type. You don't have to do anything to those kind. I'm not sure if it's a set time based on your weather or a set time based on when the fruit is ripe because so far I only have one tree that wanted to go all tree and no fruit, but on that tree, pruning for spurs happens mid to late August, about the same time as the fruit is ripe. I've heard from an extension's Youtube video to prune in early summer or spring to cause spurs, that the sunlight has something to do with it. That has not been my experience. That leads me to believe it has something to do with the individual tree and when they fruit. IMO, M111 as an espalier will desire to grow bigger than what you want and it will take a long time to convince it that it had better fruit because something is keeping it from growing big enough. My Arkansas Black is semi-dwarf and never flowered until I let it go. It took about 5 years to fruit. My dwarf espaliers fruited the second year. I would try pinching the shoots back late summer.
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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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Comments (2)
Found this doc on the web by doing a "spur type apple" Google search: http://www.homeorchardsociety.org/ebooks/samples/Apple_Fruiting_Sample.pdf If you purchase the entire e-book, you should be able to take this and then compare for varieties that grow well in your area. I would check with your Virginia Coop Extension website to see what's recommended for your area, or call your local extension office. Or your local orchard supply company, too. I did find this for you from your Virginia Coop Extension office: http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/422/422-760/422-760.html Hopefully you'll find a nice heirloom spur-type apple that will perform well for you wil good disease resistance. Let us know what you end up with. Patty S.
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Comments (17)
Nice set up, Mes111. Yes, Appleseed70, over the fence is fair game. Although I'd like the kids to wait because they'll grab them unripe and sprayed. I'd give them better apples anyway. The two trees show up there are basically the same. The bushy one is more overgrown because that's how it produces, but I am working on thinning out the top to get more sun to the lower. I'm not sure what the last tree was in the picture in '09. Judging from the description it was sawed off and grafted onto because I didn't like the variety. It's basically the same but bigger. Free standing and ready to go wild now. Hopefully should bear this year. Which reminds me, I want to get out there and put some more room between tiers. I've got two more both spur type this time. If the Macspur survives the fireblight that killed 2 and hurt it and another last year and starts producing the bushy one will be removed (maybe grafted to a free standing spot since it seems to withstand fireblight). The Earliblaze on the right is much better behaved than the Macspur on the left which is acting more like a semi-spur than it did on the free standing one which died. This was the Earliblaze last year before picking and pruning.
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upnort
15 years ago
mykl,
Im planning on getting 3 apple trees next yr and I see you have cortland-my favorite! Would you recommend that tree to a novice or should I just keep buying them at the grocery store?
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myk1
Original Author
15 years ago
If you like Cortland from stores you will like them more when they're homegrown.

Funny you would say Cortland is your favorite but you don't like McIntosh.
Cortland is a cross between Ben Davis and McIntosh.
It's flavor is a lot like McIntosh with more of a nose, but it holds up to cooking better and doesn't brown as bad when exposed to air.

My tree is a spur type that is no longer offered. Bug damage causes the apples to deform greatly and crack. Even the perfect apples don't look like what I've seen pictured for Cortland, but the fruit tastes like McIntosh, it doesn't brown and it colors like a Ben Davis so it must be the correct tree.
I don't know if the deformation was particular to the spur type and that is the reason it's not offered any more, but there must be a reason because spur type mutants are desirable.

I don't think any apple suitable for your zone would be off limits for a novice. I dived right in to espaliering apples. Although I've had some horticulture classes I had very little hands on experience growing fruit when I started.
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Spur pruning apples

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fruitnut Z7 4500ft SW TX

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Spur pruning apples

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fruitnut Z7 4500ft SW TX

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