Pruning Large Apple Tree - Need guidance on Reducing height & thinning
rossn
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
The house we bought last year has a pretty sizable apple tree. I'd guess 20-24' tall. For scale, you can see my 20 month old daughter in one of the pics.
As you can see in the pictures, there is a lot of verticality/water sprouts in the upper growth of the tree.
Ideally, I'd dramatically thin the tree and reduce it's height a fair bit to simplify maintenance and fruit picking.
I live in Colorado where fireblight is a concern, and with the extended warm snap we had during February (now cold again), many of the bushes and trees are starting to bud. I think buds were starting to form on this one, and will confirm tomorrow. Our wet season is mid-March through May.
What is a good approach to thinning and reducing this tree this year? I don't want to be so aggressive that I put the tree at risk. Any additional feedback on all the vertical sprouts?
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mpieprzica Texas Z8
7 years agoRelated Discussions
Pruning apple trees
Comments (8)Hi Chris, I will try to help but I have very little real world experience though lots of books and videos. I cant really see for sure from the pictures if it is a double trunked tree or two trees right next to each other. If it is one tree that splits into two just above the ground and if the angle is too steep you may want to get rid of the weaker less attractive one. If this is the case you could wait to do so after you see how well each of them respond to your topping and pruning. I would head cut/top all of them roughly ½ the height you want removed. I have both read and seen videos that say you should wait until Spring and others that say to do it right now. The trees are a total mess but there is a lot of healthy growth which makes me think they could stand being topped now if you are up to the task as there are still many branches lower down that will undoubtedly put on a lot of new growth come Spring which will provide more than enough photosynthesis to keep the trees alive. Then you will need to prune again after you get a lot of new growth sometime in late Spring or Summer. The whole point to this is that you do not know if the tree will put out branches in the lower part of the trees after the first topping and if it does not you could end up killing the trees which is why you dont want to do it all at once. You will of course still need to do some late Summer-Fall Pruning. The results of your topping and pruning will tell you what you should be doing next year. If you start seeing branches growing out of the lower trunk at a workable height then you will know that you can top them again down to your desired finished height next year. If not then you will just be aggressively pruning or grafting or scoring the bark to encourage growth lower on the tree but you will just have to wait and see how the trees respond. You are not going to kill them if this is done in stages so dont even worry about that. My bet is that you are going to have some VERY productive trees with easy to reach fruit 2-3 years from now. I have seen some other very good online instructional videos on pruning and when I get a chance I will post some of them in this thread. Getting the proper concept of why you should top/head cut or make thinning cuts for a given type of tree is what you really just need to get down. The rest is just cutting out dead and diseased wood or to give it a particular desired shape and thats all up to you as you see your work grow and respond to what you are doing. I would not say that the work ahead of you is extremely complicated but there are things to learn. I would call it more tedious and time consuming and somewhat dangerous if you are not used to chainsaws and ladders. I also found the UCTV videos with instruction from a professor who is a master gardener very helpful as well as some other videos. With a little watching and learning I am confident that you will not screw things up. Not knowing your skill with a saw and ladder scares me a little though because your trees are tall and you could get hurt....See Morepruning apple trees!!!!!!!!!!
Comments (23)"Hmmm, and the ornamental-tree peeps say the exact same thing about fruit-tree peeps! I think there may be some ethnocentrism and a lack of understanding in both forums, at times." I mean the things like flat tops, lollypopping and extreme hack jobs with no follow up to remove all the water sprouts. On ornamentals they allow the water sprouts to die, trying to do that on fruit delays fruit and invites tree killing disease. My niece's dying suspected Newtown is suffering from that. My neighbor's flat topped cherries (dead a couple years later) are another. Both wrong on fruit but common on ornamentals. These are types of pruning I have seen from professionals and was taught in horitculture class. And when that class landscaped a house on paper the pros that came out to do our landscaping did an even worse hack job on the ornamentals than we were taught. I don't see (and have never seen) where thinning branches, cutting back to direct growth and dead wooding would ruin an ornamental unless it's someone who over thins and destroys the shape of the ornamental. Peeps is not an English word??? Since when? And Caleb was the one who first used it. If he wanted clarification on the word he should've asked those who confused him, or at least asked with a complete sentence here. It is common slang so when someone uses it I assume they know what it means. arborvitea_96, Looks can be deceiving but it looks too tall for someone with no experience to prune safely to me. I would see about hiring Harvestman or having him recommend someone. Unless he says otherwise....See MoreApple Tree Pruning
Comments (5)What variety is it? I do not treat various varieties in the same manner. Most often the best approach is to remove all branches more than a third the diameter (where it joins the trunk) of the trunk. Leave all other branches until the tree begins to fruit and then begin choosing your permanent scaffolds and thinning out the tree. Also keep the tree at the desired height by cutting back to a small branch when it exceeds it. As a general rule, the less you prune, the more quickly fruit trees come to size and begin fruiting. I only cut back branches with varieties that tend towards lanky growth and are reluctant to send out secondary branches from scaffolds (main branches connected to trunk). If these cuts are needed your best response will come from waiting till shortly after first growth in spring to make the cuts and coming back a month later to cut back competing leaders at the point of the cut. Otherwise a stub cut can deform branch growth. You need to eliminate the competing turf below the tree if you want the tree to grow up to its potential in a reasonably short time....See MoreCan I prune/cut the TOP of a Royal Raindrops Crab Apple tree?
Comments (13)"Yes, they are pruned heavily, but not to reduce their natural size by two thirds. They're pruned to promote fruiting. Their size is controlled by growing them on appropriate root stocks." Well, that's not totally true. First, a variety of pruning styles are used when growing apple trees, and frequently pruning is used to reduce the height of the trees. Pruning is definitely not limited to promoting fruiting! Also, dwarfing rootstock controls growth rate, but not really so much eventual size. An apple tree grown on a medium dwarfing rootstock will eventually get pretty large without pruning, it just does so at a slower rate. I'm not saying it's a good idea to top your crabapple (especially in the way you describe), but it is something that can be done (especially if your goal is to keep it shorter than normal but not necessarily at no more than exactly 7' high). You can make some selective pruning cuts along the way, as it grows, and encourage it to grow more out than up....See More
Barrie, (Central PA, zone 6a)
7 years agorossn
7 years ago
Konrad..just outside of Edmonton Alberta
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agohungryfrozencanuck
7 years agoylwjacket
7 years agohungryfrozencanuck
7 years agoylwjacket
7 years agohungryfrozencanuck
7 years ago
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Konrad..just outside of Edmonton Alberta