I have a few apple trees over 50 years still producing good fruit. If the trees have not been pruned lately I think they are worth catching up with the excess growth. When your pear is in bloom collect blooms from several pear trees and put them in coffee cans of water tied up in your pear tree. This should determine if lack of pollination is your problem. Al

Hi Brandon, yes you're right about the Freyburg which I'll have to replace this year. Annoying but hopefully my other 5 (cider) apple trees I bought are going to produce the correct fruit. I'll assume that the parent tree has taken over the grafts and produced fruit similar to what I was trying to replace (once again, annoying). Interesting to note that both grafts pictured in photo 4 have the same fruit and so both appear to have "failed". Perhaps it is because the scion wood was taken from the "Freyburg" tree before it had fruited for the first time? Possibly if my original Freyburg tree was taken over by the rootstock then maybe it is not a suitable source for taking scion wood from? It would be interesting to actually know the reason why this has happened and I'm hopeful that the other grafts of the Cox's will be successful. Dave

Maybe I am slightly over-exaggerating, but this question is somewhat like, "What vehicle should I drive?" The answer is complex, and, without parameters, would require a good-sized book to cover sufficiently. I would STRONGLY advise you to do your part and study a little before you ask this broad of a question in the Fruit and Orchards Forum. You could start by using the search function, found at the bottom of that forum's main pages. Rootstock influences: 1. ultimate size of your tree 2. growth rate 3. amount and complexity of maintenance 4. ease of harvest 5. productivity 6. preciosity 7. senescence 8. hardiness 9. adaptation to different soils and soil conditions drought tolerance how well the tree will be anchored whether the tree will need permanent or temporary support (not just how well it's anchored) fruit size resistance to certain diseases resistance to certain pests rootstock and scion graft compatibility tendency to sucker and I'm sure I'm leaving off at least something. Take a little time and determine which factors are most important to you. By first identifying what information you'll need to consider, you can make your search much more efficient and insure that your conclusions are appropriate to your situation. Sure you can choose a crabapple or plain ole apple seedling and start grafting, but that is probably not the best solution in most cases. Whether it is in your case, depends.....

Butchering a fruit tree should be done in winter while the tree is dormant, as I advised in my initial post. In the spring after the tree has expended it's stored energy into pushing out new leaves puts a lot of stress on the tree. It wants to start collecting the expended nutrients, sugars, and energy from the new leaves but once those leaves are cut off, it has to start over. That tree did, as you said, push out new growth again so the butcher job didn't kill it right away. Looking at the trees in the background and how some seem to still be dormant and others are just starting to push out new growth, I wouldn't discount the tree yet. I think its great you only like a natural growing tree. In my small yard, even a fruit tree on dwarfing rootstock will grow to 15' which is too large for my needs. I keep my trees manageable for what I want. The local avocado and apple growers have been switching from growing standard height trees to growing shorter trees with more trees in a spacing. Lines of trees that were on 20' centers have been cut to the trunk and another tree planted in between to create 10' centers and then the trees are kept to the 10-15' range for ease of picking. The trees are more productive per acre, and there is much less danger in picking them because the picker isn't 25 feet up in the air. I'd like to note that many of use here advised the OP to first thin the branches out to rejuvenate the tree and re-establish the apple growing wood. The option of topping the tree down to the trunk was extreme and not what I would do first, however it was an option should that fit the OPs needs. The question was if the trees were worth saving and if they could be salvaged. I answered with a resounding yes to both and stand by my answer. The trees can absolutely be rejuvenated and for you suggest giving up on that old of a tree because its old doesn't make any sense to me. We have many 100+ year old apple trees in my local mountains still producing fruit.