Does anyone have any tips for re shaping bad fruit trees. I have reduced an old pear by the recomeended 6-8ft for a start, but there is an even more mishapen and spindly damson tree, which will be a real challenge to do anything with. The trees have had the classic neglect, with the last prune being years ago, so there are long shoots with not much at the base or middle and most at the tips.
Oh and how to scale a high tree with uneven ground and weak branches to rest on ?!!
The problem of long bare branches with not much at base or middle can be tackled. If you want some smaller branches to come from these, make notches above a few of the nodes along these bare branches. Do this about Feb/Mar (late winter) for the pear, about end April/May (end spring) for the damson. I do this with a small sharp knife, pressing into the bark and cutting about 1/16" deep, and about 1/2" long, so you cut through the bark and the thin layer beneath it and slightly into the wood.
By tipping the branches by a couple of inches in late summer, fruiting spurs will develop, also you can notch in the same way but below the nodes to help promote fruiting spurs. This will take a couple of years to pay dividends, but is well worth having a go at.
The damson will also put on a lot of new growth during summer if you do some more hard pruning during early summer, you can promote a lot of new shoot growth by cutting then, but they can get out of control once the fresh growth starts being provoked in this way. The pear will put on new branch growth as a result of being pruned hard in mid/late winter.
Working at heights - these are the regs: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/SI/si2005/20050735.htm
more info: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg401.pdf
yet more info on a more practical note: http://www.hse.gov.uk/falls/index.htm
Best of luck, be safe !
If it's an old tree you might be better to thin the branches rather than taking a bit off every one. It depends on the individual tree; any chance of a pic?
sorry dont have pics, its for a friend of a friend. The initial prune is to remove the excess growth left after years of neglect, and make the trees look a little more respectable.