Look in your area for the best looking orchard and ask the owner who he has prune it. If that pruner is not able to take on more work he may recommend someone. An orchard that has not been regularly maintained should be brought back by a professional. Al

goodness. I can barely afford groceries, much less a professional tree pruner. And although I can get some help/advice from local orchardists for free, I really would like some kind of REFERENCE. Doesn't anyone know a good book?

Check your local library. I just looked at a couple pruning books in my library and they were pretty good. Most were for all types of plants/trees/bushes but each one had a section for fruit trees. Every one had a section on rejuvinating an old orchard.

Also do a search in this forum for pruning.

Kristen,
Check with your local extension office, or Google up "Renovating Old, Abandoned Apple Trees', an Extension publication that you can order for about a buck and a half, that'll get you started - with directions and diagrams.

Any thorough pruning book will be good to get more general knowledge of the why and how. I like the AHS Pruning and Training book myself but they all have pluses and minuses. This one is very detailed but is too technical sometimes and too focused on the British climate.

Heres a couple brief descriptions of rejuvenation pruning.

http://www.nsapples.com/rejuven.htm

http://dep.state.ct.us/burnatr/wildlife/factshts/apples.htm

Scott

That is a beautiful website and a beautiful place to live. I did notice that you feel that the orchard is approx 100 years old. If that is the case, IMHO, I would slowly start riping out the trees. I understand that apple/pear trees are long lived but if you are trying to make some money from the fruit I don't believe they will be supply you with what you need. A few very old orchards are adjacent to my property. They are lovely to look at but not very productive, and they have been somewhat maintained. The wild plums might be the remnants of old rootstock.

I know it might be difficult to remove the old trees but I believe in a few years you will be better off. Maybe you could take cuttings of the old trees and graft them onto new rootstock. That might be cool.

Oh, and don't throw away that applewood. It makes great bbq.

Cheers

While you're deciding what to do with your aging trees you might as well practice on them.

On all trees it is always right to remove all dead and diseased wood- so by all means, continue as you are.

You also need to remove crowded and crossing, rubbing branches, which is usually done when the tree is dormant.

If you have shoots sticking straight up or straight down, take 'em out.

That's all I know for sure- but I hope you get some good advice too on summer pruning (which slows a tree's growth, and is convenient for keeping its size manageable) and dormant pruning (which encourages a tree to cash in on its root strength and take off vigorously). Air and light to the inside of a tree is healthy, and overcrowded centers are not.

If people like Don and Applenut and Joereal, as well as many others, disagree with me listen to them. I'm still very much in the learning phases too.

Good luck,

Mark

Wow, what a beautiful place! And yes, cold does sink. So we are on top of a hill trying to cram as much as we can around us, leaving the valley behind us to the "wildflowers" (aka weeds according to DH), mostly daisies, Queen Anne's Lace and Goldenrod. There is an old apple tree near the house that desperately needs serious pruning, so I'm glad you started this thread, I will also get some good use out of the advice given here. Good luck with yours!

With all due respect to villandry; taking out those trees would be the last thing I would do. Those trees are possibly treasures. I would start a program of summer pruning. I would take out big limbs until you have about four big limbs in an open center type of pruning. Forget anything about Central Leader.
do exactly as markmnt says.
You do want to start selecting new young limbs that can take the place of those old big limbs. You will need renewal wood for the new fruiting spurs.
I would sure follow Al's advise and hire someone. Just hire them for an afternoon to show you what to do. that isn't going to cost much. That would be money well spent. You can buy a book, but I don't think the books are going to show you what to do with older, neglected trees like what you have. I strongly urge you to get someone to come to your place and show you what and how to do it.
You aren't going to kill them. The more you cut them, the more they will grow.
You need to plan to spray them with dormant oil and lime sulfur in the spring. Spray to runoff. Now, not spraying those trees will kill them faster than anything. don't fertilize them.
the best pruning tool for you is a light weight chain saw. Don't worry about loppers. Whatever you buy will be replaced by something else, because us tree pruners seem to collect them.
getting back to villandry's advise; if the center of the tree is hollow or rotten, then yes you probably should take it out. I am just thinking that you could have some wonderful old varieties of apples there and it would be nice to see what you have. And villandry is likely thinking that it would sure be cheaper and easier to start over. He's not really wrong. Your call.

Well, yes, actually, both of you are right. In addition to rejuvenating these old trees (actually, I think they are probably more like 70-80 years, but they *could* be 100), we are also planting a new orchard. So the new orchard will hopefully bear fruit for our marketing purposes. But I absolutely will not be tearing any live trees out! There are probably a dozen dead ones we have been taking out this winter. But luckily, there is ONE thing we do not lack: Space. 26 irrigated acres. Yay! So we can easily do both, keep the old and plant the new. I'm the type who is never inclined to get rid of old stuff-- we could indeed have wonderful treasures here. But we're not relying on these trees for market.

Thanks to everyone for really great advice.

BUT, geraldo, can you tell me what you mean about spraying "for runoff"? I don't understand this. What do I spray, and when? For what purpose? This whole bit went over my head. Explain further please.

I am really excited about this project.. and now that I understand better about dormant/summer pruning, I can judge based on the tree. There is one tree that has the most absolutely fantastic apples, they are little but packed with flavor, dark red, fantastic cider and keeper, but the tree is not in good shape and doesn't have a lot of life in it. I'm inclined to prune that one soon, with hopes of spurring it to grow a lot this year. Whereas, many of the others which are 30 feet tall and have hundreds of extraneous branches, I'll prune in the summer.

Kristen

http://www.hort.cornell.edu/extension/commercial/fruit/fruittre.html

http://www.tfrec.wsu.edu/cpguide.html

Good reading and good luck.

Hmm neither of those links worked for solid information but a few google searches turned up a little bit of info. Still, it seems a bit the same as the "don't fertilize" advice-- if these trees have survived 80 years without various applications of this and that, why start now? Will pruning them make them more susceptible to fungus and/or aphid-type creatures?

lime sulphur: I think we don't typically have fungus and mildew problems in New Mexico, in general. At least, I never worry about it and never have a problem in crops prone to fungus/powdery mildew. Although this year MIGHT be different- I've got three feet of snow on the ground.

Kristen

Just Google the main website. And while you don't have much mildew, you do or should have scale. Pruning should make them less susceptible to fungus and aphid. Not all your trees have survived without this. Something caused the dead wood. Likely those dead ones you cut out were the most susceptible. And while you say the trees survived without it, that is not to say that they produced significant consumable crops. And you don't want to go to that much trouble just to grow trees. Fruit is the reason to have those trees.
Lime sulfur is an organic practice and I would recommend it.

Kristen,

If you are not relying on the old orchard for income I totally agree with Geraldo that you should maintain the orchard with lots of summer pruning. Old apple orchards are beautiful... very similiar to old olive groves. Just make sure you clean up all the fallen apples because you will attract a lot of critter friends. Do you have wild pigs? Wild pigs love apples and they will also make short work of anything else in your yard. Although pigs, fed with a diet rich in apples, are culinary treasures.

Bon appetit!

Geraldo....Have you ever grown Baby Crawford peaches? Are they as great as everyone says?

No, I never have grown Baby Crawford, but I always think of them and would like to try them.
Pigs fattened on apples, I bet that is gourmet eatin'!

"Spray till run off" Most home sprayers do not put out enough spray to do a good job on fruit trees. You should have spray dripping off the foliage, or "running off" to be sure of good coverage. When I was a kid we had a few trees of Crawford peaches which I peddled to the summer visitors at the local resorts. I can still remember "how sweet they were". Al

I noticed that Trees of Anquitity has them. I would hate to order just one tree from them but maybe I should after what Al has said.

Thanks.

Kristen,

Don't forget to start spraying copper for Peach Leaf Curl. Especially if you have a lot of older veriatels.

Variatels...that is.
:)