Agree…mine is the only tree I’ve ever had that has never needed touched with pruners. Mine is on EMLA 27 and it grows in the nicest natural fan shape. It hasn’t grown a lot since planting though because it has always been very burdened with heavy loads of apples from spring to winter. It is very slowly “fattening” up though.
Holly…that is a super nice looking espalier! I really, really like it. That tree is going to make a ton of apples. I’ll post a pic tomorrow of mine, it’s never been pruned (at all, aside from removing one root sucker) and is in it’s 3rd year since planting here.
I know nothing about espalier, but if it were me, I’d allow one more set of laterals at the top, spaced the same as the others. That would allow just a 1’ leader on top with the top tier laterals and leader all reaching exactly the same height. To me, that would be the most efficient use of space and also the most pleasing to the eye. I would only cut the laterals to remain even and in balance. There definitely is no need to prune to encourage fruiting with this variety as it wants to make WAY, WAY too many apples already.
I’d bet anything that it fruits next year, but if it doesn’t that might be good for getting the tree a little more robust in the meanwhile.
Mike and Appleseed - Thanks for the compliments; I’m hoping it will continue along smoothly. I have others that are not going so well, and some even died this summer.
But having some trees doing exactly what I hoped for keeps the spirits up!
Attached below is a drawing for what I planned for that espalier. While my overall multigraft plan is in constant flux, right now I’m planning on cutting the leader over to a piece of Reine de Reinettes in the spring, then forming the 5th angled tier and the little tophat section from that.
I’m still a pretty inexperienced grafter but I have done some successful ones on wild trees on the bikepath I take to work. Hopefully a whip and tongue at the top like that will take off relatively easily.
Mike - thanks for the pruning advice. I had been thinking nipping back the laterals would encourage more vigorous growth in them so they can reach their intended lengths. But based on what you guys have to say I’ll just trim them to even things up if they get far out of whack.
The trellis is made of western red cedar and aluminum, with stainless fasteners, cables and stays. I CNC cut the offset bracket things; here is a side picture from a year ago, which in fact nicely shows the Gold Rush tree in question before this season’s growth.
Ha ha, that is my next door neighbor (catholic church). Most of the time they are better than living next to another house, and they definitely have a nice looking building.
Hambone, Rubinette has gotten some fireblight but never horrible. Reine des Reinettes is not as intense.
Holly, those espalier do look very nice. It also reminded me of your dead trees and that I was going to paint some neem on one side of my G11 but forgot to. Will try next year as I am curious.
Generally not a good idea to pull scaffolds to a 90 degree angle. 65 degrees will not stunt their growth, although most varieties spread to 90 would send uprights from the scaffolds, but the Goldrush is simply spending all the energy of scaffolds to flower buds.
My limited experience pulling down apple limbs (around + or - 60 degrees) is that it slows their vigorous growth, but most definitely does send up vigorous upright growth. This kinda stinks, because that’s not what we’re shooting for, but does have the benefit (as observed in my limited observation) of slowing out of control upward growth as well as increasing monumentally the branch diameter.
My aforementioned “limited experience” does include Goldrush among others. In short, I’m basically agreeing with everything Alan says, but also agreeing with Bill, it definitely does appear that your’s has directed it’s energy upwards in lieu of sending up vertical growth. Mamuang…is sunlight an issue here you think? I cannot tell what time of day it is in this photo, but for whatever reason it seems like maybe evening? If that’s right then would it be accurate to say it receives mostly western sun, since it is leaning that way?
It really is reaching for the sky as you said.
Did you get apples from it?
The other affect of bending branches all the way to horizontal and lower is that branches then tend to store more carbos for fruit production. It is useful in species and varieties that refuse to GROW UP sexually but insist on doing so vegetatively.
Festooning is an old English technique often used on E. plums to encourage fruiting where branches are pulled down well below horizontal. You deal with water sprouts with summer pruning so the lowered branches continue to receive good light. It seems to be effective IME. I also use it a lot with N. Spy, the most upward growing, Peter Pan of a variety of apple I grow.
It would be precisely the wrong way to train GR unless it was an espalier. Then you’d pull the branches down annually after they had a chance of some upward growth.
I’m still learning the art of limb bending and I have some ranging from 45 to 90 degrees. The scaffolds with approximately 65 degrees seem to be working best for me. They tend to continue growing and also send out fruit spurs. As someone in a previous post said it is easier to start the bending while the trees are small. Thanks Bill
Its my understanding that the proper training technique depends more on the apple tree spacing than the variety. Where trees are planted close together in a high density orchard on a dwarf rootstock, its necessary to bend the lateral limbs down to keep them from exceeding the available space and to keep their diameter small. Starting around year 4, the largest diameter lateral branch is removed each year and each branch is “simplified”.