Hi everyone! Excuse me if this shouldn’t be a whole thread but it seemed too big a question for the “questions not deserving of a whole thread”. I’m getting around to pruning my 2nd year apples and I’m noticing that my branches are all very long and spindly. I’m very pleased with the amount of growth they put on last year, but after my summer pruning I expected more laterals to form lower down on the scaffold branches. As the pictures I’ve included indicate, the laterals only seemed to form at the very ends of the scaffold limbs (after my summer pruning, which I think I may have had a misunderstanding about) and now I’m unsure of the right move. I’ve been studying Orin Martin’s Fruit Trees for Every Garden, and I expected my trees to look more like the illustration below. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Here’s a pruning guide written by our illustrious Alan that may help.
Situations differ but as I understand it he generally recommends pruning as little as possible until your apples start fruiting significantly.
That wood that you’re cutting off would allow the rest of the tree to gain in size faster and get you to the “good part” at which point you can easily shape it to your will
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