Apple tree pruning help

10 years ago

Hi all,

When we bought our house a few years ago, we were happy to find a nice big apple tree in the back yard (and grapes, and figs). Every year it produces lots of leaves, but not so many blossoms and little fruit. We tend to get 12-24 apples off of it, and it's a large tree.

Our neighbour also has an apple tree, and it has way more blossoms and way, way, more apples.

I've tried different pruning on it, but the result it always similar.

My best thought is that it's too big and too dense. I've tried cutting away some in the center but don't want to cut off too much and shock it. Each winter I've cut back all the vertical branches on top (I believe those are suckers, right?)

See some pics below, any suggestions or thoughts would be appreciated.

On a related note, we had great harvest from our grapes (83L of wine!) and our vegetable garden (several dozen jars of salsa, tomato sauce, and countless zucchini dishes).

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Comments (3)

fireduck
10 years ago
Whoever pruned that tree before had no idea about pruning an apple tree. First of all...you must realize that apples bear fruit on spurs of old wood (over 3 years old or so). Your tree was butchered...and all the top growth was taken off, and only the big main branches remained (see how your large main branches quickly turn to young whip type branches?). That is the point where someone lopped off the top of the tree. No worries...you can recover. Thin those whip branches (young)...eliminating 3 out of 4 branches. Prune off the ends (last 6") of the remaining whip branches. This will force outward growth. It will result in good fruit production in 2-3 years. Study the difference between "heading cuts" and "thinning cuts". goodluck
Konrad..just outside of Edmonton Alberta
10 years ago
last modified: 10 years ago
O boy, yeah... looks like these trees were butchered last year and now you have a ton of one year waterspouts, a good example of what one can do in a worst case scenario and no harm done to the tree,..just created more work for you and some delay for a good harvest again. In a nutshell... looks like you need to take out about 90% wood, [cut even with main trunk] and cut the fruiting leader about 1/3 back.
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greenenvy22
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks for the tips! I'll take some of the blame for the pruning, but we continued along what the previous owner had done, which I guess he was as clueless as me :)

So for most of the whip branches (the vertical ones up top right?) I am going to cut them down right to where they hit a main branch? Removing about 75%? the rest I cut off around 6" from the top?

What about cutting out that one big trunk in the middle that goes straight up? Leaving the 3 going out on angles? Thinking of trying to get more light into the center.