I have a mature apricot tree that has suffered under my amateur care. It started loosing branches about 5-6 years ago. The extension office finally convinced me it was due to drought stress and It’s been making a recovery. It’s the bigger tree in the back behind all my grafted suckers.
Despite it no longer loosing branches, nearly all of it’s established branches have damage like this, where the bark along the top of the branch is dead and falling off. Should I chop the branch back this spring and let it grow new branches?
The tree is super lopsided right now because it was loosing branches primary on it’s east side (left in the top picture).
That was my thought. This variety puts up suckers everywhere. I grafted a branch from the parent onto a sucker that was right at it’s base. It’s about 6 ft tall now, so I’m ready incase it kicks it.
I was trying to decide if I should do something like this.
I want to qualify that I am not an arborist or professional in any way before I say this.
General rule of thumb is to not take more than about 1/3 of a fruit tree at any given time. Make sure your tools are clean enough to not be introducing pathogens into your cuts from anything diseased. Definition of how to calculate 30% are not really consistent.
If appearance of sickness is significant and you’re already resigned to a few years without fruit, it would likely be worth going ahead and removing it and letting the grafted clone take it’s place. Assuming it wasn’t grafted to start with, the clones should all yield the same fruit as the parent, but the mature wood might shorten your time to fruit. (I do not specifically know apricots as all.)
If you want to try to save it, rather than the headache of trying to math out your specifics: I would suggest that I see four main branches. Starting with the most damaged, I would cut them back one each year during the dorman season to the spot that you wish you had when it was young, peforming selective pruning on the new growth as needed to maintain your vision.
For most trees, too many sprouts can sap recovery, so be mindful of what you have and prune the extras accordingly to give you back your balance, maintain your desired accessibility, and promote future health.
I disagree with what @Mtncj has written. Much depends on the location, species, and cultivar. We still need the location and hardiness zone before making suggestions.
A tree’s health is largely based on vigor. If the tree is sending out vigorous new growth that new growth is like a young tree sitting on top of a damaged trunk that may be receiving what it needs to stay strong from said vigorous growth.
Trees can have a good bit of rotten wood in their trunks and still be perfectly vital, they wall off the rot and create very strong wood called callous wood at the wall point. If that callous is growing the tree can be completely rejuvenated. If the tree is growing vigorously the so is the callous.
In the west, apricot trees can live a century, my first cot was in the Santa Monica mountains (hills) and was on our property when we moved there in 1963, it was still very vigorous 50 years later- the last time I saw it.
Cut off what is dead and what is too high and gradually shape it into the tree you want. If it dies it dies. Only cut it down if you are short on room.
I’m a bit sentimental about old cots, being old myself.
You grafted to the suckers in front, so I guess you’re planning on those taking over? If you don’t care about the apricots from the big tree you could cut it back and focus on what you grafted.
I have a few old peach trees (15- 20 yrs) that also have that missing bark on the top of their branches like yours. They aren’t worth renovating into a shape (peaches where I am are not going to live very long). However, since the trees are still putting out tasty peaches, I cut the dead branches off, pruned them heavily, and left them alone. I also planted some new peach trees to replace them.
I have a nectarine tree that keep on splitting and peeling because of insect. They lay eggs in the trunk and cause the damage. Because of the stress the tree produce suckers, which it never done before. Just like you, I grafted the suckers just in case I have to cut the majority of the tree away. After 2 years, the grafts worked and the damage keep spreading. There was a single branch below the damage area. I cut 70% of the tree in winter when it is sleeping. The tree didn’t grow fast in the first half of the year, but grow quickly in the 2nd half. The single branch now have multiple branches and even the suckers increase in size. The tree becomes more bushy and healthy.
If your tree doesn’t produce any more damage, then It’s up to you to decide to leave it alone. If it does not produce good fruit because of lack of water or nutrient uptake because of damage, then I would chop below the major area of the damage. At least for me, I have a good outcome from chopping my tree below the damage area.
Sorry for the late replies. I just noticed that people had commented. I’m just north of salt lake city. I believe 7B.
I have no idea what the apricot is. it is grafted onto what I am convinced is a St. Julian Plum root stock.
Like I said, the tree has had a few rough years. The branch sticking out over the alley has produced lots of Cots for the last few years and is growing vigorously. I took a lot of branches off of that main branch because I don’t want it to snap when it get’s loaded.
The largest branch I cut off 2 years ago (the large dead one in the second picture) has put out 1 single new branch.
I think It’ll start growing vigorously again now that I’m fertilizing it and watering it reasonably. I don’t see any signs of insect damage.
If you’ve seen positive growth otherwise, I would not worry too much about that, especially if you sealed the cut and/or cut it while the tree was truly dormant.
My old trees that have been getting some not-so-TLC are pears, but most of the sprouts I got on it were on smaller branches. Last year I would have had a bumber crop from them if Hurricane Helene hadn’t intervened. (The deer, birds, and groundhogs cleard up well over 1000 fruits under the nearest tree before the following weekend saw me doing it.) The trees had not been maintained when young, so most of the fruit was well out of reach when on the tree.
I just reduced them significantly again; down to only one main branch each. This may prove to be too aggressive, but if not, I expect I will see lots of new branches formed because the remaining canopy is definitely now out of balance with the root system. I do not expect to see fruit this year, and probably not anything significant the next.
