Umies: Very easy question. Either leave them like they are or cut them down. You will never tame a 50ft apple tree. If you cann't prune them the first time, you won't like the follow-up pruning that will be a never ending chore, and very expensive to have done. So, either leave them or cut them down. Either way, plant new trees on dwarf or semidwarf rootstock if it's apples you want.

The Fruitnut

umies:

I'm with the Fruitnut on this one, and I would lean toward cutting them down, even though that might be a big project, and quite expensive if you can't do it yourself.

You obviously would like to grow some apples, a desire that many of us here can well understand. With these big trees out there, dropping buggy fruit all over the place and impossible to spray or thin, it wouldn't make sense to plant any new trees until they are gone.

If you can get these giants out of there you can probably plant a half-dozen or more semi-dwarf trees in the space they occupied (but not, of course in exactly the same spot). That way you could diversify your varieties and produce early, late, and midseason apples if you choose. There are lots of good varieties, like Honeycrisp, Sweet Sixteen, Pixie Crunch, Williams Pride, and many others that you could grow in Wisconsin.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA