If u do this, only at the end of the branch.
@JinMA I’m so intrigued that you have also observed this! This is exactly what has been happening with my Black Oxford on espalier. I really struggled the first few years to get horizontals to train on one side. It has balanced out on the top two branches but I still have a big gap on one side that is a bit comical.
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Could you possibly chip bud some other vigorous cultivar in that spot to add a branch? Not speaking from experience, this just seems like a logical solution.
@disc4tw if we were staying at this house longer I might’ve experimented more with that spot. We close on a new house next Friday, though, so that Oxford will have to be someone else’s special project. I’m already dreaming up my new espalier line-up! lol
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@alleyapples: Really fascinating that you’ve had the same experience with Black Oxford. Suggests that it really is a tendency of the variety. I do like the apples that we’ve started to get from it, though. All the best with your new house and espalier!
@disc4tw: Personally, I have been managing my Black Oxfords by repeatedly notching the stronger scaffold. It seems to be balancing things out a bit over time, and may have contributed to getting fruit this year. (Just to be clear, the problem is not that there isn’t a branch where I want it to be, it’s that the tree seems to want to channel more vigor into one scaffold than the other.)
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