help with training young apple tree

17 years ago

This is my first time to try and grow fruit trees.

I ordered a bare root semi-dwarf Fuji apple, which has been promised to be sent out to me on March 4th.

After first ordering that Fuji apple, I also found a dwarf sized Goldrush apple tree to order from a different company. It already arrived at my doorstep in the 3rd week of February. This Goldrush tree had been pruned and arrived about 3 feet tall with no side branching, but with very healthy looking buds on a fairly thin, grafted trunk.

My concern with training this tree to develop good tiers of branch structure, is that I ultimately want to plant the tree at a house I own, but where I do not live.

This creates a situation where I will not be able to monitor the tree often enough if I plant it on the distant neighborhood lot, before it is in the form where it needs to be and before it has already developed a correct branching structure.

My Solution was, as soon as the dwarf grafted Goldrush apple arrived in bare root form, to plant the tree in a 15 gallon nursery pot into a steril, custom designed well draining potting soil, which has a well balanced ratio of bark, humus, sand, and peat for healthy root development, and which discourages root rot.

I set this potted tree on the east side of my sandstone veneered house, which acts like a passive radant heat source during the few evenings that still happen once or twice a week when low temps drop into the low 30 and high 20 degrees F. range. I also surrounded the tree's potting soil filled, large black nursery pot with a thick layer of mulch to prevent the soil from freezing at the few times each week such a thing might otherwise happen.

When planting the tree, I added a pack I found, supplied in the shipped tree's packaging, of calcium pellets to the potting soil, and will be certain to keep the potted tree fertilized with low nitrogen levels of non burning, natural fertilizer once the tree leafs out.

Does my description sound like I am doing the right thing for this dwarf apple tree. If so; I would like to keep it growing in the pot until after it goes dormant again and after it has grown, with proper pruning, several tiers of branching stucture.

If the Fuji apple arrives unbranched like the dwarf Goldrush apple did, I am tending to think I should pot it up the same way I just described.

Am I doing this right, or is there better advice that can be offered for how I should handle these young apple trees?

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Comments (2)

fruitnut Z7 4500ft SW TX
17 years ago
Katrina:

Seems to me like you have most of the bases well covered. And you have chosen two very good varieties of apples.

One of your main concerns sounds like it is developing good branch structure. This is the right time to do that. You need wide crotch angles to have a strong structure. That is, you would like the branches off the trunk to be about 30 degrees above horizontal. The best way to assure that is to prune back hard now. The thing I always worry about is: are there viable buds down on the 18 inches above the graft union? You say that there are. So I would prune back to about 18 inches, 24 at most, above the graft union.

If there are good buds down low, cut it back hard now. If there aren't on your Fuji, it is still probably best to cut it back hard. If even one bud above the graft grows, you have the makings of a good tree. In that case let the one bud grow this summer and cut back hard next winter. That is the best way to get a strong tree structure.

If you are going to grow the tree as an open vase or vase shaped bush, this one cycle will give you all the branches you need. If you want a central leader, train the strongest central sprout straight up on a pole. Next winter develope another layer of branches by cutting back hard.

I grow mine as a bush with many branches fairly thick. My reason for this is to provide some shade for the fruit. Sunburn of the fruit is a major problem here and probably in OK. Others like an open vase tree but they don't have sunburned fruit like we do.

Hope this wasn't just confusing.

The Fruitnut
katrina1
Original Author
17 years ago
Thanks for the advice; otherwise, I wouldn't have thought about fruit sunburn.

It seems like pruning to a main leader will be best for my dwarf Goldrush. Since it has such a short growth potential, I guess I will just let the first tier of branches start 18 inches above the graft union. Each year thereafter I think I should be able to prune and train the leader for growing another 18 inches before letting each following tier of branching to develop. I was glad the instuctions sent with the tree, indicated that it will always need to be staked. Knowing that will keep me from making a mistake by expecting it's roots to develop well enough to support this tree.

With the semi-dwarf sized Fuji apple tree, I planned to begin 30 inches above the graft union for the first tier of branching, and each time thereafter space the next tier of branching about 18 to 20 inches above that. It is not yet clear to me as to how the tree will grow and react if I try to prevent it from growing above 10 feet tall.

Of course while the Fuji apple tree is growing in a pot over the next couple of years that should not be a concern. After that though, if it develops well enough, and thereafter enters into full enough dormant state, well enough, I plan to try and safely plant it in the ground.

Once planted in the ground, and it reaches 10 feet tall, I am wondering if I can just keep pruning out any new buds which would otherwise allow the tree to keep growing higher. Hopefully I will not find that each pruning job thereafter becomes to demanding for me to expect that I will be able to keep the tiers of branches from spreading more wide than what looks best with the tree's main leader and tier structure.
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