The apple variety is?
“Transparent-Gala”. According to Otto. I don’t know.
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The most common mistake with such trees is the removal of water sprouts lower on the trunk. Ultimately, you don’t want bearing branches up in the sky but down where you can reach them without employing more than a short step ladder. Some old trees are not vital enough to send out new wood lower in the trunk, but usually the trees I work on put out ample growth lower in the tree.
During summer you make sure those lower branches get light by removing at least upright shoots high in the tree and you use branch spreaders judiciously to gradually spread your new future canopy. Keep them vertical enough to sustain vigor and use hinges if you need to when they need to be bent more horizontally than they are willing.
Regardless of the utility of lower branches, functioning branches further down the tree strengthens the trunk. Repeated removal of interior wood eventually makes all species of trees excessively lanky and architecturally doomed to toppling.
Where your branches are now should be the focus of gradual removal to bring the trees down in height and create stouter, stronger, more beautiful and productive trees.
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Alan, what are hinges?
That is when you use a sharp pruning saw to make cuts a third of the way into the diameter of the branch you are trying to spread. You can make as few as 3 cuts or as many a you need but put them where the branch wants to bend and be sure you do it on the side you are bending the branch towards (duh!). If the branch starts to break where it’s connected to the trunk, tie it back up with string and try again later, but use tape or string to avoid leverage where the branch meats the trunk, or larger branch it tried to break from.
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I’m going to have to look into this more… that isn’t something I had any idea about perviously. Are you just using the kerf of the blade to allow the bend, or cutting a wedge shape out? Its strength is restored over time?
Just straight cuts- I’ve never tried cutting wedges because the cuts work, although it may require more of them, but wedges would probably take longer to heal, which they do, and branches become stronger than ever after a season of growth. I’ve never gotten damaging rot as a result of such wounds and I use the method on any species I grow that needs it almost any day I’m training young trees or older trees with young grafts. The longer you wait to pull branches to horizontal the quicker they establish.
Yesterday I was pulling some upright and very stiff apricot and peach branches to more horizontal position by using hinges and pulling the branches down with string wrapped around the base of the trees- the string will be cut as soon as the branches stabilize so it doesn’t girdle the trees. This way I don’t have to put stakes in the ground which takes more time and may pull up in soggy soil after rain.
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I checked the current price of Ecological Fruit Production in the North. The link below:
has it on Amazon for $464.68 - I’ve recently seen it at $625.50 - for a paperback book that originally sold for $11.00. I purchased a used copy in excellent condition recently for under $25.
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When I started my business it was still being printed, I think. Its chapter on renovating old apple trees was my original guideline and really helped me build my business. Outside of NYC the rich tend to like building their homes on the rolling hills that were once NYC’s source of apples and I have many clients with huge old apple trees on their property. Maintaining them for fruit is very labor intensive and it is labor involving skill most arborists lack.
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Wow, Alan… knowing about hinges really opens a lot of doors with a whole new technique. This is incredibly cool, and thanks for sharing your knowledge!
I went out and scoured other related threads to learn what I could, and have a few questions I didn’t see discussion on…
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When you use hinges with grafting, it sounds like you let the graft get established with vertical vigor. How many seasons (or what size) do you usually wait post-graft to hinge? When you then go for it, you can always take that branch below horizontal?
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How close to where the the branch joins the next larger branch/scaffold/trunk/leader will you hinge? Maybe this varies for young/grafted wood vs. established wood.
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Are you always aiming to get the bulk of the branch below vertical, or sometimes you use hinging to make more subtle structural changes to the tree?
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Holy moly! Pandemic pricing! Or… Alan has created a market surge!
Like you, I bought a copy on Amazon a year ago for < $25
I often bend grafts before they need a hinge and even grafts that become like a small branched tree after one seasons growth usually can be adequately brought to more horizontal position without a hinge- just bend the branch gently a few times to increase it’s flexibility.
That said, last week I cut off a two year graft that had become a tall tree in the middle of a J. plum tree because it was passed bending as a practical manner and I had another, less vigorous graft of the same variety in the tree.
So most hinges are used after two years growth, before that, grafts tend to be limber enough to bend, as long as the graft is as strong as the original branch. It usually is after a single season’s growth and healing.
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Thanks, Alan!
Thought I’d post updated photos on just one branch of just one of the trees from my earlier photos (above in this thread), and maybe see what @alan has to say. I was impressed by the way some of the new horizontal laterals are gaining dominance, and my idea would be to remove some of the competition to those dominants, and then manage them for fruit spurs. The fingers off of those laterals are starting to bloom right now; in a week it should be loaded.
I’d probably try to remove most of the vertical water sprouts and thin out about 1/2 - 2/3 of the remaining growth. Comments?
Here’s a somewhat different view:
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I would remove all but very least vigorous uprights if it leaves enough to avoid scorch. Leave most of what is weeping, of course, mostly just remove touching wood.
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You can sort out the details during the growing season- letting more light onto weeping wood by removing vigorous uprights anytime from late spring through summer accelerates the process quite a bit. Once trees are leafed out, the odds of scorching the bark are reduced- I think it mostly happens in early spring and once there are enough leaves to pull a lot of sap through the tree, heat buildup in the cambium seems to dial down. If there is enough transpiration even unshaded bark remains cool enough to protect the cambium from excess heat. The trick is guessing the needed ratio, but I’ve never scorched wood with summer pruning that I’m aware of. Not that sunscald is a death sentence- but it does increase the chances of large scaffolds snapping under stress as rot on top of the branch weakens them in precisely the wrong place. Sometimes it takes decades for breakage to occur from when bark is first scorched. Usually it doesn’t kill a tree, just deforms it. If a scaffold looks weak, I try to train a replacement ahead of time. .
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I am very intrigued by this comment by @alan :
The most common mistake with such trees is the removal of water sprouts lower on the trunk.
Does this imply that I should keep waterspouts that are at a good height on the trunk and weight or spread them to develop a limb?
I have read as much as I can but I am new to this and I don’t want to do wrong by my old (new to me) trees. They are very tall! I am also not sure exactly what they all are: apple, pear, asian pear, or a combination.
I am the author of this thread: 40 sad and neglected apple/pear/asian pear trees if you want to see my trees!
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The idea is that you are reconstructing the tree and some of those watersprouts should be allowed to grow lower in the tree to become future branches- meanwhile they protect the wood from sun scorch by drawing sap. It also should be understood that leaves favoritively serve the wood most closely connected to them. Research has shown that young trees of many (all?) species create better taper- that is thicker, stronger early trunks, when temporary branches are left low in the tree. It is probably safe to assume that even in older trees, lower branches serve the lower trunk better than the leaves on branches further away.
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I have a group of neglected apple trees on land I purchased in Hudson Valley last year.
I have cut away a lot of vines that were growing on the trees and removed
a lot of dying ash trees to give them more light. Some of the apple trees are growing
very close together and I was wondering what was the maximum diameter branch I can prune
from a tree? Most of the trees are tall so it would require climbing in the canopy to do a lot of the
pruning and was hoping I could remove 1 or 2 large branches down low.
Thanks for all the info on this thread.
If am apple tree is fairly vigorous you won’t kill it by removing large branches. I have cut off huge branches when bring down a trees height.
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