can you see a graft ....???

what was your source ...

the sideways pix are discombobulating .... but im wondering why one trunk is pinkish.. and the other pinkish ... it could be age ... but it might also indicate its a root sucker ... or from below the graft .....

im torn as to what to advise you .. other than... you can always prune a tree later ... its hard to glue bad decisions back on ...

lets see what others think ... ken

With that new growth so much more aggressive than the known original plant, I'd suspect it was from the root stock (if grafted) rather than being the cultivar. It could just be the fact that the original was topped by the deer, but I can't tell from here.

tj

Yes,

If both shoots are from above the graft (assuming grafted), there's no hurry to remove anything. If the dominant shoot is from the root stock, then it should be removed now before it takes over and becomes the tree.

Thanks for the responses. The tree was not grafted and I've been cutting away all the root suckers. I bought it as a bare root tree and it is painted purple so I could differentiate from the other trees that I purchased.

You can see in these photos where I cleaned the deer damage where they had chewed it down to the snow line and it's all new growth from this summer. I just want to make sure I'm helping it focus it's energy in the right areas for the healthiest tree. There is still growth on the main trunk, it's just the new shoot is nearly twice at large so I wasn't sure if I should it make it the dominant, prune it or leave it alone.

A tree that size is no hurry and either branch will do nicely as a main stem. Fall is not the best time to prune Apple. You could wait until next season and see what it does but I would not leave it growing parallel trunks for long, if that's what it does.

Spring, on into May, June even July are better times to prune Malus.