Pruning new apples -now in glorious technicolour

[derbex]

I have three apples that I'm growing as stepovers, and this is their first year.

Two of them were made by bending over the maiden whips (sounds v. dodgy to me  :o ) and these now have braches (leaders ? ) coming off them :

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(ascii art -the teleprinter lives :) )

most of these I don't want. Should I remove them now, the theory being that the growth will go into the branches I do want, or should I leave them until late summer or even winter?

Similarly for the 3rd tree -of which I only want two branches- should I remove all the others?



Jeremy

[derbex]

[derbex]

Does no one know their apples  ???

[Palustris]

Yes, reasonably well, but pruning to shape is such a huge subject with lots of ifs and ands and buts. May I suggest you look out for the RHS book on Pruning, it does give very good guide lines as to how to shape your trees. You may cut back any unwanted branches to 3 leaves and then later back to one leaf to turn it into a fruiting spur.

[Jesse]

Hi Derbex, I'm no expert in pruning but here are my thoughts.

Stepovers usually have the main stem cut just above two buds at planting, the two buds then become the two lateral branches, each one extending in opposite directions from each other at the main stem. Your tree as you say has had the main stem bent over which I have not seen before.

I would be inclined to only prune in the autumn. I have heard, but don't know if it is true, that you should not prune in winter (i.e. when growth is dormant) because the tree would then be prone to disease, if there is no sap flow, as in the dormant months of winter, the tree is unable to heal the prune cuts and prevent disease from entering the tree.

With my trees, I concentrated on getting the structure right for the first few years, this meant hard pruning and not much fruit, sometimes nothing at all, but it was important to get the shape I wanted. Now I only prune out the branches I don't want and trim the current seasons growth (in autumn as all the leaves are falling) to about 2 thirds (i.e. taking off about 1 third) just to keep it in shape and stop it from getting too big.

[derbex]

RTFM then :)

Jesseveve, one tree is as you described -a one tier esplaiered 'Blenheim Orange',
the other two are a 'Katy' and the 'Ashmeads Kernal' in the picture. I bent them over after reading a Which article -about the only thing I could find specifically on stepovers- and because I couldn't believe that the tree would come back from such a vicious crop. Which, of course, it has.

It was the timing that I was particularly interested in, but I'm probably being far too impatient and should leave well alone for now. The Ken Muir book seems to suggest August as a good time -but I'll reread that bit.

Jeremy

[Palustris]

Sorry I missed out the pruning dates myself. All of the books suggest end of July and early August for Summer pruning.