Insight needed for pruning / grafting on an existing crabapple tree that has never been trained

[Fruitmonk]

Hello all,
I’m hoping to partake of the collective experience and wisdom here to help me with deciding how to approach pruning (and also grafting) to an existing crab apple tree at our new place.

The tree is roughly 30 years old and seems to have taken well to this poor draining clay, but other than some signs of large branches having been removed by tge past owner which (i’m assuming sprawled out low and wide enough to make mowing under it tricky), I’m doubtful the tree was ever trained/pruned.

I’ve cut out a couple of larger limbs that were obviously dead, and a couple of the worst crossing branches that were rubbing against other limbs (there are a few stubs in the pictures I have here but they will be cut back to a branch collar), but I’m finding the scraggly growth of this tree a little overwhelming for someone that’s never pruned an apple tree before to decide where to start from there.

I know i want to be judicious with how much I prune in a single year to avoid over stressing the tree, but looking at the shape, the tree is lopsided towards the N and E sides which i worry could be a threat to it if we have a strong windstorm from the wrong direction.

My eventual plan for the tree is to graft various other apples into it as a “frankentree” and i should have several scions coming this year to get started on that, but I’m also debating where the best spots to do such grafting would be to compliment the needed pruning strategy.

Thanks in advance. I appreciate any wisdom the pruning masters here have to give. Pictures to follow (these pictures were taken late afternoon so the sun is coming from the west and throwing the shadows eastward for orientation).

[FoodforBeings_WV6b]

My thoughts, although I’m not all that experienced with top working over an established tree. When I’ve done so I leave one main branch as a ‘nurse limb’ lower than the grafts I am doing. Then I cut everything back tight to the trunk and cleft or bark graft the stubs. The new growth pushing from the scion and the nurse limb should give your crabapple plenty of energy, and they won’t be too stressed from the heavy pruning.

[Andrew_Sblendorio]

Just to get started, how many major living branches have you cut and when did you cut them?

[Fruitmonk]

I took two living ones out that were about 1.5 to 2 inches in diameter which were crossing and rubbing other branches. I took a third about that size out that was mostly dead (but the wood near the branch collar was still alive and i noticed maybe a half dozen buds on one of the branches off of it). I also took off a completely dead limb (dead dry, moss growing on it -the one on the south-western most part of the tree in these before pictures) that was less than 2 inches in diameter, a handful of dead twigs pencil thick or less, and 2 or two or three pencil thin (or thinner) water spouts that i needed to remove to physically get at the dead limb.

I did all this in the past week while we had some dry weather. Here are pictures of the tree before i touched anything if helpful:

(These were taken in early afternoon i believe so the sun would have been coming from a more Southwesterly direction).

[Toadham]

I have not worked on a tree this old. My son in law has grafted on to lower branches of a big crabapple, and the grafts have taken. He wants to keep the fruit on lower branches so the kids can reach it. He will likely have to prune out some upper branches to let enough sun down to the grafted branches.

I’d have similar concerns for this tree. How do you prune it down to a good height for bearing and harvesting fruit?

Though people often advise not to take out too much of the existing canopy, you can also see examples of people “top working” a tree where they take the tree down to the trunk or a few scaffold branches, and then graft on new varieties. Videos of this are pretty easy to find. Here’s one with John Bunker (who started Fedco). Here he is doing one branch, but as he mentions, you can do multiple branches or the entire trunk.

Topwork Grafting with John Bunker

[benthegirl]

I have a bunch of older larger trees that I have been grafting on. Instead of chopping them and doing bark grafts I’ve been doing lots of smaller grafts while heavily pruning back sections of the tree I don’t want. I decided to try this after reading some of @alan’s posts and after reading some stuff about “frameworking” a tree.

I went from never having grafted to doing 50+ grafts on one tree and a bunch of them took. I tried different varieties of whatever was easy to get so there wasn’t much thought with respect to choosing scions or placing them, but mostly I wanted to see if I could do it. I’ll have to let you know how it works out. The people who actually framework do many many more grafts (but usually only one variety).

I know people who actually do multi-variety trees pay attention to which are less vigorous and put them at the top.

On a second tree, I only made about 5 grafts. I first pruned the branches above the branch I was going to graft on (so I wouldn’t prune them later and drop branches and damage my newly grafted branch). Then, I grafted to a water shoot that I could bend or tie the following year to put it at a good angle. I pruned the tree but didn’t chop it off or anything, figuring I’d more gradually convert it. This is what @alan describes doing.

I have a few trees that had no branches that were low (yours seems to have plenty) so for those, I heavily pruned hoping they’d get some watershoots that I could then graft to this year.

I did read so so so much advice on grafting and tried all sorts of different grafts and with parafilm and without and with wax and with electrical tape, etc. The most successful were scion to watershoot with same diameter and a splice graft. The details (wax, electrical tape, parafilm, etc) didn’t seem to matter for those.

[Andrew_Sblendorio]

Ha ha it would be so much easier if we were there looking at the tree with you!

Pruning:

If you don’t have much pruning experience, this is not an easy place to start. So keep that in mind. This tree will never be a perfect beautiful apple tree, and there are no straightforward answers.

I’d highly recommend grabbing a copy of “The Pruning Book” by Lee Reich. From that book you can get an overview of the ideal structure for a tree like this.

But generally you want one central trunk with scaffolding branches coming out at strong angles spaced out well along that central trunk.

Currently you’ve got many thick upright central branches competing to be the center of that tree, which is normal. So as an overarching idea I’d consider removing the upright branches at the base or trying to redirect growth from them outward by selecting a bud or sprout along the upright branches length that is headed in a good direction.

Consider this year one of a three to four year project to get this tree on track.

You’ve already done a fair amount of large cuts for the year. There’s no exact line, but maybe consider one more major cut and then stop for now.

After major cuts, I’d just start clearing out some of those low sprouts. Keep in mind that some of the nice fresh sprouts could be great places to whip and tongue graft onto, and if they come out at a good angle they could eventually be the scaffolding branches you want to replace those upright branches.

As far as making selections of what to cut, here are my priorities:

• Clean up and clear out the center of the tree
• Select branches that are going up (as opposed to curving or going down)
• Select branches that are going out (as opposed to in towards the center of the tree or kind of following the circumference of the tree)
• Clear out crossing branches

As far as the balance around the tree, I don’t think that would be a huge priority. To me that base looks so thick and strongly anchored, if it got blown over at this point you’d have way bigger problems than that tree.

Grafting:

As far as grafting the tree over to other varieties, there are a lot of different techniques and subtleties everyone has started laying out already.

Generally the least aggressive graft is going to be one where the scion and the rootstock (let’s call your tree the rootstock) branch are the same or similar size. It will be a good balanced transition. The wider the rootstock branch, the more aggressively that branch will try to overwhelm your graft with new sprouts. So keep that in mind. Spring and summer pruning around those grafts will be helpful because what will eventually become hardened sprouts will just be tender green growth early in the season so you can easily and quickly pick it off by hand.