Nice. What is it, a pole lopper? What’s the reach on it? How does it work, does it use a cord? I’m curious, how tall are your tallest trees?
That Milam apple I was pruning on today I think is about 25-30ft. It sets lots of fruit every year, but most of them are out of reach, so I can’t thin them out, so they end up very small. It’s been here long before we got here, I think my wife said her grandparents planted it and some others around the farm. There used to be a lot of apples, plums and cherry trees here, but now there’s just 2 or 3 of these Milam’s and two decrepit cherry trees.
It is a pole lopper yes and depending on the model you get the reach is different as well as adjustable. Light weight and has a chain and a ribbon like cord. I 72 inches with additional couple of feet reach with the pole I can reach probably 16 feet… and I have the small one. It is just so handy I normally have it with me all the time along with a saw and hand pruners. It isn’t meant to cut real thick branches but when sharpened, it will knock out some good sized ones. If it ever broke… I’d buy another… It’s just handy… for out of reach limbs and light weight…
In the video you see the lady cutting low bushes… I use them to clear multifora … and if you know what that is … you know they are a pain…
Another thing… Fiskars has always been good about warranty… no questions asked… on all products for me.
I got the long reach pair of ARS pruners yesterday.
Rick had told me in a PM that the long reach pruners were one of the best tools he’d bought. They won’t prune big stuff, but for smaller stuff it’s fine. Like Rick, I plan to use the battery operated pruners for the big stuff and then come back with the long reach pruners for the smaller stuff.
Rick got a 4’ pair, but I felt like for my trees that might be a little long (my trees are pretty short and I’m a fairly tall guy). So, I ended up getting their 2’ model.
I haven’t used them yet, but I’m thinking it would be helpful to reach the center of the trees easier, and not have to do as much bending and reaching to prune out the small stuff. Plus the strong endorsement from Rick was enough to make me try them.
They are very lightweight and seem to have the good Japanese quality which ARS is known for. The head and pipe swivel 180 degrees to allow for better angles on cutting the shoots. The action seems smooth and easy, but like I say, I haven’t tried them in the field yet.
Please share your experience with the long handle lopper.
I’m trying something new this year on peaches. I headed the long fruiting wood at the top of the trees with my new long handle lopper on 1/2 of the row and left the high fruiting wood on the other half of the row un-headed.
I plan to go back and head the fruiting wood on the other half of the row after the possibility of a peach killing frost is over. If I have a bad frost, I’m going to leave the fruiting wood un-headed in order to get as many peaches as possible.
I discussed my plan briefly with the tree fruit PHD from NCSU during a pruning demo last week, but he did not like my idea!
Most of my peach trees have reached first pink of perhaps a little beyond and we have a 20-25 degree temp coming next week so I may have a chance to test my idea. It could be a total waste of time.
For the last few years I’ve sort of done the same thing. The difference is that I cut all the vertical waterspouts out in the fall and left all other wood. I don’t like to keep waterspouts under any condition, but I still left more wood on the trees than needed. I’d leave the wood until after fruit set and go through at that time and cut out any wood which was unproductive. This would be more inside wood, extreme low hanging wood, and any wood which didn’t have peaches.
This year I’m doing it a little different. I didn’t do any pruning in the fall and plan to wait till after fruit set to prune, then go in and prune real heavy at that time. It’s not my preferred tactic, but I didn’t have time to prune the trees last fall.
