I did it; and I’m posting the results so that other folks still leery of chopping off a perfectly good new tree with hacked roots will be encouraged. Of course, the end result will tell the real story. The Satsuma plum from the beginning of the post is looking good. The apple does have little shoots at the end of its remaining branches, which were probably left too long; so it’s still with us at least. Here are my latest and most severe chops:
Steve
They look pretty good to me now and should survive. The only thing that sticks out to me and it could just be the way the pic was taken is that the central leader on your comice looks shorter then some of the other branches. Your central leader should be taller then the others so there is no competition but like I said, it could just be the picture. By the book and most books/papers say to have only one central leader. But one or two I have read say you can have two just in case if one gets fireblight you have another that doesn’t. Just prune off the one that has fireblight. I have a Chojuro Asian pear with two central leaders, the deer decided I should not have had either of them the first year I planted it back in 2012. They both sprung back to life the next year and took off.
Chojuro Asian pear 2017
At this point I’m thinking they have undergone such a change from their original form that they are in a wait-and-see state…generally heading in the right direction, I hope. I am just starting to get a feeling for the ‘bigger picture’ when I look at a young tree, so if I get 6-8 out of 10 issues addressed, and the tree lives, I’m doing great ha ha. Thanks for the encouragement to prune heavy. I think they’ll do well.
@Drew51 is it ok for your tree to have the scallfolds starting from the same point ? I’ve read that it can weaken them and them risk some damage under fruit weight
No, it’s not good. But I was not going to grow a new central leader for the third time on this tree. I needed to leave it that way so the trunk could be thick enough to withstand our winters. I did say it was a long story. I was afraid training a new central leader would result in the central leader yet again dying back to just above the graft. So decided to leave it. And it did survive the next winter.
I never had weight issues, the last two years it produced a lot, but this year only has a handful of buds. Not sure what happened? All my other trees are fine.
