I have a Cot-N-Candy Aprium that I planted bare root last February. As you can see from the picture it appears to have a codominate branch. I want to have lower scaffold. The codominate branch on the left is at about 30 inches. Which is where I’d like to head the tree. However, I’m not sure if new branches would sprout from the trunk. And I’m wondering if I should completely prune off the codominate branch and head the tree back with no branch at all. Any advice is appreciated.
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Here’s what I ended up doing.
This tree was in ground for one year. Here it is pushing new growth. I sacrificed a year of fruit, but in the long run it will be well worth it. The was a larger caliper tree so I was unsure about the response in spring. However, this is a very vigorous growing variety even on citation rootstock.
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How are the roots in these? I’m new to the planting game and we decided on this one at the nursery today. Wondering if it will ruin our concrete if planted near the house or if we should plant in a more open area
i almost had a heart attack lol
took a lot of balls and paying off
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If I can suggest something - never ever cut the leader like that - flat. It is an invitation to fungal infections and problems in later life. Always cut it under an angle such that rain drops will go down the trunk and not sit and wait for spores to invade.
Cheers
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And CnC is pretty much an Apricot. Do not winter prune from here on in California. Only summer pruning.
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Excellent growth. I’d prune once more now and won’t touch the tree till spring/summer next year.
Here’s a most recent photo from the other day. Flowering well this spring and looks to be setting a decent first crop. This will be third year in ground. Still not down blooming. Just thought I’d give an update.
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I’m not a fan of CnC. I ripped mine out. Gave it 5 plus years… To me Flavor Delight is a lot better, and lTasty Rich is even better
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Looks great! My husband loves the flavor of this fruit!
Just did some early summer pruning on my Cot-n-Candy Aprium.
Here in the deep south (zone 9a) we are already almost to 4 months into the growing season. This tree was planted bare root a year ago spring. It was getting some really long branches so today I cut them back about 1/3 or so. Hopefully I get 3-5 laterals on each branch this summer to increase fruiting wood at a reachable height.
I’m seeing many state they like the flavor of other apriums…but it’s too early to regret my choice. I’m not even very confident it will set and hold fruit where I live, though chill hours would not be the reason.
The fact I’m even trying to grow this (mostly apricot) is a bit audacious to begin with.
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@Shibumi this is my Summer Delight Aprium planted this spring. As you can see two old branches have no active growth at the bottom, if I head them 1/3 is there a chance to stimulate more lateral branches? or is it like peach where once they lose branching at the bottom it never comes back.
@Oregon_Fruit_Grow
Check out “How To Prune Fruit Trees” by R. Sanford Martin. Pay special attention to the section on “Training of young trees”. This text is designed for western U.S. conditions.
I’m not the one to ask really. There are so many other folks on the board growing more and for longer.
Having said that I don’t think you want to use a peach as an example. I believe it’s normal for peach trees to have a number of whole limbs die back each year. I don’t know if this is just what it does when not pruned or not.
So I inquired about buds in general this spring because I planted several bare root trees. I normal head them back around 20-30 inches to develop a lower scaffolded tree. The problem I had was these trees had no visible buds on them.
So I found out from the very helpful horticulturalist at Raintree the following:
“The preventitious, or latent, buds are the ones we are hoping to awaken once the adventitious buds have dropped off due to stress.”
So the buds we can visibly see on tree branches and trunks are called adventitious. Many of my bare root trees arrived with all of these buds missing, whether they were rubbed off or dried out and fell. I wanted to know how the tree would send out new growth in this case.
The hidden bud tissue is called preventitious, or latent buds. You can’t tell how many or where they are, but nature has a way to remedy damage that takes out much of the tree.
So pruning back dormant wood even without seeing any adventitious buds still activates the latent buds and the tree has all it’s stored energy to push new growth.
On an already growing tree in mid-summer making a cut on wood with no visible buds… I just don’t know what the result is. There is less push since much of the trees energy is already above ground distributed throughout the tree.
The roots store bio-compounds from which they can manufacture or directly send substances for growth to other locations within the plant.
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So much instead of all of its energy?
My thoughts could be wrong of course. I’d think dormant pruning ( especially heading a branch short) would have a better chance of pushing growth more evenly distributed across the tree than summer.
Summer pruning does reduce vigor, but where I am I haves plenty of vigor to spare with a ridiculously long growing season.
Energy is a misnomer. For example, a gasoline engine used fuel and an electric engine uses charge stored in a battery. In both cases the reserves are converted to mechanical power.
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