Hi ladies/gents,
Which way do you prefer to train your apple trees and why?
I currently have apple trees about 6 years old that I have been training that I cut the central leader out of (open center). I just recently planted 6 more apple trees and am thinking about leaving the central leader. Curious what y’all think about advantages and disadvantages of both methods.
Hope y’all have a great day!
Thank you
Chris
Hi Chris,
What’s to gain with central leader? Protection from deer, but if there are no deer threats, I prefer the open center so that as the tree ages the fruit producing limbs are within easy reach without a ladder! This makes all related management task much easier with a lot less labor. So if you have room for the trees to spread a bit, the open center like my Cortland pic is ideal. This tree is about 30 years old now and I don’t need a ladder to spray, prune, or gather!
Best wishes
Dennis
Kent, wa
Central leader is also easy to keep small. Especially the modified central leader variant, which is basically just open center with a leader that you trim back every year, adding progressively smaller scaffolds as you go up. I think that suits apples better, as you’re not fighting their natural tendencies as much.
If you dont have deer pressure… you might even consider espellar.
Probably best to have a rootstock like B9 for that.
Espellar makes it very easy to do all things required to apples, pruning, thinning, spraying, inspecting, harvesting.
Never need a ladder.
Fruiting starts earlier since fruit spurs develop quickly on espellar scaffold branches.
I have one tree done like that and it is by far the most productive fuss free apple I have ever had.
Open center pruning with limbs trained flat horizontally… should speed up fruiting in a similar fashon.
In my warm dry climate with judicious watering, it doesn’t matter. A bush will work. Just thin out the small wood every few years. My trees are so small, 6-10ft tall, that I’m planting on standard rootstock. Seeds I grew from store apples. I’ll see how big those get. My MM111 is 6ft tall. The standard tree that was here when I moved in 20 yrs ago was about 16ft. I might need an open center for the trees on seedling.
Those in wet climates often fight excessive vigor and excess shading of the trees interior. There an open center is probably the way to go.
I’m doing my Dorset Golds as trimmed central leader. Which they seem to like. My Anna’s seem to want to be open. And only put out a lame central stalk. I wonder if the nursery did that cut before putting it out for sale. There is definitely more room between the Dorsets though.
Also depends on variety. Trees with long wood and large fruit seem to do better with central leader for me. Or they’d end up like weeping willows.
Otherwise I prefer tall trunks and open center even in the fenced food forest as we can have such high humidity that my car has lichen unless cleaned with a toothbrush… I need the air to move under and through the canopy.
But then there are trees that will insist on central leaders like Eiserapfel. Fortunately that one has a naturally airy crown.
