My first tree was supposed to be mCL but I let a couple of scaffolds get too large, and a couple of others didn’t do what I’d hoped and so on, and now I call it a muddified central leader. Still produces lots of apples, though.
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Here is a line of 3 apples I have trained somewhat to a MCL. I am not very strict in the pruning as some of these trees hold 8 different varieties and I leave extra for scion cutting. Some scaffolds are too thick because they are a grafted branch of an important variety I want to grow out for scion wood. All trees are on wild crabapple seedlings.
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No, I can’t even remember if I notched a bud on the Stayman tree. I remember that I did notch to get branches started on various trees after I planted - just don’t remember which ones. I merely was stating that there is a technique to start a branch by notching. Often a tree comes from the nursery that is just a whip or has a minimal number of branches. Of course, it’s common to cut off the central leader to induce branches just below the cut but that is not always desirable. Really doubt if notching caused the fireblight on this particular tree. I had fireblight strikes in other trees that year. The Bartlett pears that I had at the time was a magnet for fireblight so that was the problem.
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Those look good, is there any downside or issues tying branches down this way vs using weights? I filled old bottles last year and used those and this seems like a lot less work… i wasnt sure if our strong winds we get here would be a problem if I used the cage as an anchor, but looks like you used the next scaffold as an anchor for many of them.
The trees are close to my front door so they get more attention then my other trees. The main problem is string eventually sinking in and girdling the branch. I slide the loops to a different location every few months. The trees would look better if deer didn’t constantly tip the lower branches.
I wasn’t sure if this was a reply to me or not 
At this point I’m leaving those little twigs as there’s still plenty of sunlight and they’re making fruit buds pretty quick. Maybe they’ll get shaded out later and I’ll remove - but I think it might work to leave them.
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Ha, this is how my Arkansas Black tree looks every year when weighted down with apples. The branches are small and can’t hold the weight of the fruit. I have every branched tied with string in an effort to save the crop and the limbs. It’s a sort of orchard spiderweb and I’m the spider.
I think you are very industrious taking on the crotch angle of every branch! Your trees will surely turn out well. I have considered making cement weights but right now my go to is limb stretchers.
Thanks for the photo - I like seeing the real world results. Looks good, but deer also love having things easy to reach.
Be careful of selecting secondary scaffolds as permanent. The above picture shows the lowest level of three scaffolds on my Gravenstein tree. Two of the primary scaffolds has secondary scaffolds that are about a foot away from the central leader. While both are not ideal because they are too close to the trunk the one on the left is much more problematic because of the narrow angle. This causes crossing issues resulting in having to prune excessively as they are competing for space as seen in the below picture.
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I don’t do dwarfs, so the ‘bonsai’ pruning level of care isn’t in my skill set, but many years ago read that ‘the tree knows what shape it wants to be’ and we’re just there to help it be the best it can be. Even within the same variety, one will go completely ‘central leader’, while the next goes ‘vase’. Selecting against weak crotches and narrow angles I’m ok with, but some trees are just stubborn, and need to just let be or they’ll fight you every year.
Fortunately, I grew up among some elderly wonders of the apple world, whose gravity and orthodoxy defying shapes and productivity taught me to respect their own innate ‘wisdom’.
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Hey Dennis - I have a few questions about how you manage the vertical water shoots on your headed apple. Are you suggesting it’s easier to bend and tie the shoots, versus trimming them? I have seen similar comments by others, but have been unclear. With so many shoots, I would think tying them down would take a long time and be over crowded over time, but am wanting to do something similar with a pear that has tons of water sprouts, and I have an apple tree that is a good candidate for your approach.
Also, what’s the rough spread of your apple, and how much fruit does it typically produce? I’m not sure I have the scale right in my head.
Hi Ross,
I’m actually removing my two mature trees this spring to replace them with semi dwarfs. Both have spreads about 30’. They were becoming an annual work requirement that as I grow older, is just too much. While they produced a lot of fruit, they seemed to want to grow more wood than fruit each year. Once water sprouts start, pruning them off just breeds several more later. Bending a few over to lateral growth does produce more fruit, but to keep the canopy thin enough to allow sun into the fruit is still quite a chore.
I have to spray my apples here with kaolin clay to prevent damage by the fruit fly maggots, so I am switching to a smaller tree to reduce the annual work required.
I have not found a way to prevent water sprouts. But I think topping them very early on might reduce some.
Best wishes
Dennis
Thanks, Dennis. It sounds like that tree wants to be its intended height, and that’s pretty massive! I have one mature apple of almost the same spread and a mature pear that want to do the same. I grafted a bunch of apples onto bud.9 last year to effectively replace it (for the same reasons you mention), but thought maybe you had a secretly successful approach I could get you to share! Seems most say to summer prune them and with the pears, leaving a dominant vertical grower to cut out after it fruits the following year. I’ve seen some success on the pear with that, but this past summer the water sprouts exploded after I went a season not removing the top.
Good luck with the semi-dwarfs!
I have two semi dwarfs that have done very well and very easy to keep at a height to reach all branches
So I’m done with standard rootstocks
Nice. What type of spread are you expecting on them at maturity, with your methods? I have an extra crunch-a-bunch (M111) here I am mulling putting in the ground, but space is short and I don’t want to work from ladders.
I believe those twigs might be spurs. He’ll know for sure if the set flowers.
Only about 15’ diameter when mature and max height of 10’
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In my experience a semi-dwarf won’t necessarily grow any less than a standard and a standard won’t necessarily grow any more than a semi-dwarf.
Alot depends on what variety the tree has been grafted to rather than what rootstock it is on. For example, I have a Gravenstein that is supposedly on semi-dwarf rootstock. Pretty sure that it is semi-dwarf because have read that Grav’s grow extremely large regardless of rootstock. I have a tree next to it grafted to Braeburn that I raised from seed, so it has to be standard rootstock. Well, the Braeburn is about the size of a couple of other semi-dwarfs that I have. The Grav is about twice as big. The only conclusion that I can make is that semi-dwarfs are not really dwarfing. You’re going to still need a ladder for them unless you’re really into shortening them.
However, once I have a yellow delicious that I bought from Lowe’s that was apparently mislabeled as semi-dwarf that ended up being a dwarf. Never got any taller than a scrawny 10’ and never had to prune it. Didn’t produce a large amount of fruit in any one season but that’s okay as I am sure that I could have planted it much denser if I had planted all dwarfs. The tree finally died. I don’t know why. Maybe dwarfs have a shorter life span. If I had it all to do over again, I would consider all dwarfs though.