Pruning old apple trees?

/pine · Mar 12, 2011

On a side note...
If you like smoked meats or fish...apple wood gives a mild but flavorful taste to leaner cuts of meat and fish...

Lloyd_E · Mar 12, 2011

dex has it bang on...

I will be starting this week along with a 100 others things that need to be started/accomplished. All of a sudden spring has arrived and things need to get done - now!

We had our first major snow storm late January... a few more storms and bang we are into spring or as the locals call it - season of mud. I am afraid to move my tractor out of the back yard. Note to self: park tractor in driveway when temps go above +5c!

Lloyd

keegs · Mar 13, 2011

+1 what the goat lady said.

I have a Winesap and an a Macoun. I trimmed both again late last fall. The first go-round (a few years ago) I used an illustration I printed from a website of the kind of branches to target, got up on a ladder and went to town. The following year the Winesap produced allot more apples than in prior years and they were somewhat larger as well. The Macoun is only in the ground about 5 years or so. It's got some time.

Both my trees have had tent caterpillar nests. I hit it with the garden hose and remove the remaining caterpillars by hand. The trees seem more susceptible to disease. I hear a mild soap solution applied with a hose fertilizer sprayer will treat some diseases as well as insect infestation.

wv8n · Mar 13, 2011

Well I trimmed on them yesterday we will see how it turns out this year. On a side not as i was hauling the trimmings to my burn location I ran in to a old timer neighbor who said he used to pick off those trees when he was younger. He said they were black twig apples. said the where good keepers and good for cooking. Said they dont just turn to mush like store bought apples lol. Hope they do good, Told him if the start producing ill drop him off a bucket or 3 full of them. Thanks for all the help yall.

Larry Caldwell · Mar 13, 2011

Prune any dead or diseased wood out of the tree right now. Don't worry about percentages, get it out of there. Fire blight looks like blackened bark, and can be spread to healthy wood by your pruning tools, so if you have fire blight, haul along a 5 gallon bucket of strong bleach solution to disinfect your tools.

Besides pruning, apples really benefit from a dormant spray made of lime-sulfur and a little oil. Hit the tree with a strong spray before the buds swell or you prune, then follow with a couple more dilute sprays ending at blossom.

Worms in apples burrow from the core out. They drop to the ground under the tree and pupate until the next blossom, when they hatch to moths or flies and fly up into the tree to lay eggs in the blossom. Most fruit parasites are not good at flying, so you can really reduce your problems with good orchard sanitation.

You will see professional orchards that are bare dirt under the trees. This disrupts the fruit fly reproduction cycle, and also removes competition from grasses for moisture and nutrients. Roundup under the tree before the buds swell, and rototill under the tree before blossom. You don't need to till deep, just deep enough to get the grass roots.