Topic: Pruning neglected apple tree

[hemajo]

Any advice about pruning a very large cooking apple tree which is very very tall (we have been in this garden for 8 years and have done nothing to the tree and the previous owners very definitely did nothing, so it is certainly neglected).  Have had some good crops from it, but this year just one apple.  However, they grow so high up, we have to get them down by shaking, using our Wolf apple picker (Time consuming and fiddly), or picking up wind-falls.   It also cuts out a lot of light to an area I could possibly develop for the veg!

[wardy]

I have that problem too but our tree doesn't yield edible fruit - it's horrible  ;D  I pruned it to get rid of all the damaged and crossing over branches and just generally to open it up as it was very dense.  It's fruiting well at the moment.  I have another one which is smaller and I lightly pruned that but that hardly ever fruits but it looks ok so I leave it other than just tidy it up as it's by the path and you get an earful if you don't lightly prune it  :)  I have a huge old pear tree which fruits every other year.  It is massively tall and we couldn't hope to pick fruit from it so we just let it drop and then use any which don't get too damaged in the fall.  Most of it goes to feed the birds and the rest in the compost bin.
I'm going to get some new fruit trees for the allotment but less tall varieties  :)

[jennym]

You can do several things to your cooking apple tree to encourage the fruit to grow lower - but it will take a couple of years, so be patient.
First, as Wardy says, the tree needs to be opened out and any dead, diseased, damaged, crossing and touching branches removed. Do this with a good pruning saw in January/February during the dormant season. Then look at the tree.
If you have long branches with few or no fruiting areas along the bottom length, I suggest you cut back about a third of these, cut just above a node or joint. Seems severe, but will reap benefits. On the second third, rub your fingers along, and where you see nodes, take a sharp knife and make an incision just above each node, about 1/4" deep and about 1 1/2" long. This may encourage fresh growth from these points.
On the final third of the branches, reduce smaller side shoots by around a third. Some cooking apples are a mixture of spur bearing and tip bearing - the fruit either comes from knobbly little spurs over 2 years old, or from basal growth on one year old shoots. The pruning done this spring will reduce the fruit yield but pay dividends long term.

[hemajo]

JennyM, I will have to print out your advice and study it  - but thank you.  I think that I might even think about choosing a new tree  or two on dwarfing rootstock, so that we can train them properly from the beginning, and hopefully avoid the problems of a massive tree which is unmanageable.  Then I could take the old one out in a few years, when the others have grown.

Wardy, I have some other apple trees, two of which produce inedible fruits when they produce any, and to be honest they should be chopped down and replaced as well, but my son has built a tree house in each of them this summer, so they have to stay until he loses interest!

[Robert_Brenchley]

If they're old trees, it might be better to prune them in stages over several years, so as not to give the tree too much of a shock. If they're in good health, go ahead and hack!