Hi, I have a 20 year old apricot tree that I have shaped into an open vase. Outside of removing water sprouts in the center and general dead wood I haven’t pruned it in a long time. I feel it should be cut back to get some young wood on it but it also is in the front yard and has ornamental value as well. I do like the way it looks and it gives a decent amount of fruit. None the less the longer you wait the more difficult it is to prune. I lost the fruit this year due to late frost so if I’m going to prune it this is the year. So my question is, How far back should I cut it? Would it make sense to do half of it this year and half next year?
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I don’t have any suggestions for pruning but I just wanted to comment that it sure is a beautiful tree.
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Do you know the apricot variety? It’s a beautiful tree.
For me the challenge would be to maintain the beauty. I don’t have experience with a tree that size so I would proceed slowly thinking that I can’t undue a cut once it is made.
So many pictures here are of one and two year trees so it’s a pleasure to see a nicely shaped mature tree. Keep us updated on your progress.
You can see my dilemma, the tree has great ornamental value and is in my front yard. It is now at its mature height so maybe I should leave it alone or just chip back 6 inches to promote new fruiting wood.
As far as variety I it was labeled Moorpark but according to information and opinions on this board it may be something else. In its 20 years I have only lost a crop twice due to late frost. It blooms early but the flowers and fruit hold up to mild frosts.
Here is a picture of the fruit.
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That picture of the fruit isn’t a real good representation because I picked these slightly green for preserves. Maybe everyone knows this, slightly green fruit makes better preserves.
I agree with the sentiments here, I have zero experience with Apricots but man that tree is awesome!
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If you are able to pick the fruits with a picker then I would leave the tree alone. Beautiful cot tree.
Tony
You can do a crown reduction, also called drop crotching, by cutting back to lower crotches but maintaining a natural shape with careful selection to maintain a similar but lower shape. The rule of thumb is to not reduce more than 30% of the tree any year, although I ignore that rule when tending to very vigorous over-grown apple trees. I don’t manage any huge old apricot trees like that- they are extremely rare in the northeast, however I used to aggressively prune my father’s apricot tree in S. CA and it was still healthy the last time I saw it- it was probably 61 years old. I pruned it every time I visited him. It was a mature tree when I first met it in 1963.
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One of the things that scare me pruning the tree is leaving branches with wounds that will never heal over. To do any significant pruning I’ll have to cut branches at least 2 inches in diameter. I hate to see these cuts slowly rot,
That is a really nice tree. @alan suggest crowning and to me that would be a good idea. Looks like you have some power wires running into the top right side and I know the power company would butcher the tree if left up to them. If not power all utilities companies really aren’t all about looks. That is a great tree.
Use cheap toilet wax to cover the wounds. It works really well.
If you have research that is newer than what I’m aware of let me know, but last I checked, pruning compounds don’t help trees heal except in rare instances where the wounds may attract certain types of beetles- not the case with cots.
This is from 20ll, and was the first thing to come up in a search. All I have time for.
The toilet wax seals the wood from elements preventing contact with water, spores, bacteria, etc. It probably does not speed up healing, but it should decrease the chances of infection. In Russia there is a pruning sealer called “garden wax” which is used widely on the trees. I was looking for the same sealer in US and could not find anything similar. Then I tried toilet wax and it happened to be very similar in the texture to the russian garden wax. I did not like the regular black pruning sealer which is sold in the stores. It is easily washed out by the rain, it does not prevent canker and it leaves black residues for many years which actually look like the canker infection, so it gets confusing.
No it is more likely to retard healing by keeping the wound wet and encouraging fungus. That’s why they don’t use them anymore in this country. Alex Shigo did careful experiments a few decades ago when doing research for the U.S Dept of Forestry trying to develop a superior wound sealer, instead he learned the trees are better of fending for themselves. Subsequent research has confirmed this except in fairly rare instances where there is a problem with insects being drawn to wounds and using them for entry. The only recommended wound sealer I know of in this case is Lap Basalm.
Trees don’t heal like human beings. Instead of attacking infections they wall them out with antifungal compounds. Fungus functions best in moist environments so you are giving them more power to invade if you create a water proof seal.
I’ve never known a commercial orchard to use wound sealer- I believe it was not done even before Shigo’s research. Only arborists ever adopted the practice of using it, I believe.
Maybe they did not study toilet wax? 
Alan, it is possible that you are right. I cleaned several wounds on peaches and cherries that did not heal well and had canker. On some of them I dusted wettable sulfur before I applied the wax ( I do not really know: it might hurt the tree even more or might not) and some were just covered with wax. I will watch the wounds over the summer and see how the healing goes. So far the damaged areas do not bleed the sap which I think is a good sign meaning they are not stressed. All this areas were bleeding sap before the cleaning. Some trees are fine with healing and the others are get infected easily. I would do a lot for my pair of peaches, cherries and apricots, but I do not think that commercial growers consider it economically appropriate to cover each wound. Arborists probably do, because they deal with each tree individually. Toilet wax should have some antifungal properties, because it is used to seal the toilets where even slight moisture will lead to the mold development. But I do not have the proof on the matter. So far only time will tell. But at least I think that it should not hurt the tree.
I’ve heard of using toilet wax for sealing grafts. That would make sense.
In my reading, I found some nice pictures that helped me a lot. I’ll try to upload the file. The information sounds really good to me, too (but we’d have to ask @alan , etc).
Pruning mature trees.pdf (3.4 MB)
Scroll to the 1st picture of a big tree and that’s the section I mean for your beautiful mature apricot.
That is a good write up on a variety of fruit. I think I will leave one branch alone cut another branch about a foot and another two feet then see how each does next year.
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