I'll try to link it. It's a very helpful article. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Here is a link that might be useful: Bas van dan Ende article

Some of us who are not "natural born pruners" need a pruning by the numbers refresher, FREQUENTLY to keep us in line. Thanks for a well written article. Al

Great article and great site! Here's a link to all the pruning related articles on that site:
http://www.google.com/search?q=pruning+site:goodfruit.com&hl=en&num=10&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=off&tbs=

Thanks Mr. C. I stored the info and will attempt it at next need.

Thank you,

really nice article and website

Sincerely,
Sam

Hman, thanks for posting the link. Very interesting article. I know you have been advocating that we use this approach. However, I think it raises more questions, which I posted as comments to the article. I hope the author will respond. In the mean time, I would like your comments. Here is what I wrote:

Thank you for providing this pruning guide--much needed for many of us. However, I am a bit confused by part of the guide:

Rule 1 states "never shorten one-year old laterals." But then rule 3 refers to some wood that was cropped when it was one-year-old. And the branching in Figure 2 suggests that it was cropped as one-year-old-wood. Are there times when we should crop new wood?

The article says this 1-2-3 program works "if you keep your trees calm." Could we have more information on how to do this?

I believe some apples trees are tip bearing, while others are more spur-type bearing. Do we apply this 1-2-3 rule differently, depending on the type?

Many thanks for making this article available to all.
Marc

Not going back to read the article as I've been using most of these methods for many years- he does suggest stubbing higher shoots on one year (last years) wood, where you're trying to develop lateral fruiting wood from latent buds along the whole length. These higher shoots will dominate the buds beneath them otherwise. This is just pinch pruning and should be done as soon as higher buds begin to outgrow those beneath.

Delayed heading cuts are also used on leaders where you wait at least until open bloom when the response will be better at getting buds to grow further beneath the cut then just the first 2 or 3 buds below the stub. Those tip buds will still grow and all but one should be removed asap. The one left should be the one growing straightest (in the direction the leader is already heading.

Delayed heading cuts need to be done sometime during first flush so they are not summer pruning but late spring pruning.

The pruning I mentioned in the first paragraph would be growth that originated shortly before cuts are made. I think my wording was misleading.

Marc, now I read the article and I wasn't even talking about the same info. I'm confused now by your question. When Ende talks about cropping one year wood he's referring to getting pears from shoots on their second year. Did you think by cropping he meant cutting?

It isn't 3 rules but the rules in dealing with 1, 2 and 3 year wood.

Hman, you are exactly right. My inexperience and lack of orchard vocabulary led to my misunderstanding: I took "cropping" to mean cutting! Now it is much more clear to me, and as I was out there pruning today I was very careful not to cut new wood.

Many thanks for helping me!

Marc, usually on adequately vigorous bearing trees a certain amount of one year wood should be removed to reduce crowding but you can learn this as you go by observing conditions during the growing season and doing some of your pruning then. One year wood attached to the trunk and directly to the beginning of the scaffolds are often much too vigorous to be useful fruiting wood.