Yes. The only reason to prune is to cause branches where you want them. If they're already there go ahead and use them.

Espalier on a ladder is a pain in the butt. I had a semi-dwarf candelabra started and let it go wild. But my dwarfs are more like 5'.

I've never actually trained espalier (yet) so take this for what little it's worth. One of the textbook reasons the lower branches are trained first is the top will have tendency for more vigor and out grow/balance the bottom. Establishing the lower branches first helps give 'em a head start. You can see this in many espaliers that have aged at a retail nursery -- the top-most branches are much thicker than the lowers. Of course one reason for this is due to close spacing of other trees/espaliers at retail, not allowing as much light to the lower levels. Having said that, my inexperience would favor keeping the existing branches thereby not relying on future growth -- "bird in the hand" and all that. In addition, if your tree does exhibit strong top vigor as I stated, you'd have to deal with this eventually anyway, trying to completely avoid would be futile.

Last year I bought two nicely branched bareroot apple trees from Lowes with two low branches a little less than 2 feet long. I espaliered the trees two levels at once last year and each level reached about about 7 feet wide. In fact the third level on both trees were about half-way done at the end of last year. My goal is to have 7' by 6' expaliers and expect to finish them this year. The root stocks of my trees are semi-dwarf. By the way, there are about 20 apples one each tree.

You can prune way above 32'' if the branches at 32'' are well formed. Remove any branches between levels on the main trunk to encourage the growth of the branches you selected. Please note that the growth of horizontal branches is slow. Keeping the end portion of a branch at an upward angle encourages the branch to grow faster.

wow, thanks for the advice all! I was hoping two levels at once would work well, hated to lop off those nice new branch starts...sounds like you got plenty of growth, Tagtail! Are you saying you got 20 apples on a tree after one year? That's awesome...

One place I read they said to let all the branches below the cut grow the first year, and then train your chosen branches and prune everything else off in the winter. Tagtail, are you saying you left only those trained branches growing right from the start?

Thanks!

Rubbing out everything you don't want and training what you do want is best.

If it should happen to gain enough height to get to a third level before the year is up pinching that growth where you want branches is better than waiting for winter and cutting hard wood.

This is one of mine at the end of its first year.
{{gwi:89075}}

I only leave the trained branches to grow and remove all others along the main trunk (similar to myk1's in the picture above). I cut back the secondary branches on the trained branches to about 5 leaves when they reach about 1 foot long. Since in southern California we have a very long warm season, my espaliers are a little bigger than myk1's. This year each tree has about 20 apples (I have thinned out more than 40 apples on each tree and I am thinking whether I should remove more.)

wow, myk1 and tagtail, those sound/look great. Thanks for the inspiration, can't wait to see what we've got in a year!