Today we are going to take a quick look at how to prune apple trees. While it is true that your apple trees will produce fruit without pruning, you will get better, easier to pick fruit if you prune the trees. Ideally apple trees should be pruned yearly. Young trees will require little to no pruning, older trees much more extensive pruning. If you’ve never pruned a tree before, don’t worry. Apples are forgiving and a great place to learn.
Just like with anything else we have pruned, it is important to take a moment to understand where apple trees fruit before we get started. As we have mentioned before, this is the underlying ‘how and when’ to prune guide. Apple trees fruit on old wood. They produce little, short branches called spurs that produce fruit. They are typically pruned during the winter when they are dormant like most deciduous plants.
For maximum production, apple trees are typically trained into a single leader conical shape.
If you want a rounder more ornamental shape, they can be trained that way as well. The same basic pruning principals still apply. When pruning apple trees, you want to try to prune as minimally as possible. The more pruning you do, the more pruning you will have to do in the future.
When you are pruning trees of any kind, you want to remove branches down to the branch collar, but not below it. This is where the tree will heal over the cut from most quickly. If you prune below the branch collar or leave a stub it takes the tree longer to close over the cut making it more likely for rot to set in. This is particularly true if you remove large branches.
Let’s get started!
The first thing you want to do is remove any dead, damaged or diseased wood. Next, remove branches that are crossing over or rubbing on each other, and branches growing downward. Then, thin branches that are growing too close to each other. When thinning branches you want to remove one of the branches all the way down to its base. Ideally when pruning apples you want to remove whole branches instead of making cuts partway up if possible.
Next you want to remove any branches that are bigger than the trunk, this is particularly true of young trees. If you don’t remove these branches they will potentially become the dominant shoot instead of your trunk which can result in a weak, misshapen tree.
You also want to remove all the water sprouts—vigorous vertical branches. Young trees might not have any. Older trees, particularly those with very horizontally oriented branches may have a lot. These shoots are pretty obvious. They grow straight up, and may be 4-6’ long, and all this year’s growth.
If you are pruning an older overgrown tree, or one that has been neglected removing the water sprouts may not be enough. You may need to thin your tree. To do this start by removing small weak shoots followed by those in areas where growth is particularly heavy. Your goal is to promote light and airflow as that is what your fruit needs to ripen properly. Lastly, you want to remove any suckers at the base of the tree.
If you are pruning a young tree to a central leader shape, your goal is to create 1 central shoot with scaffold branches every 12” or so.
As you are training your young tree, choose a leader shoot every year, and 3-5 side branches in a whorl. Remove everything else. To encourage your young tree to produce the desired side shoots you can top your central leader above where you wish to produce a new layer of branches. Cutting off the tip of the shoot will cause nearby buds to sprout. Once they have sprouted you can select a new leader and your side branches.
If you are growing your tree in a central leader style, you want to keep your upper branches shorter than your lower branches so that your tree maintains a pyramidal shape. This is to keep the upper branches from shading out the lower branches.
If your tree’s branches are growing too vertical, you can use spreaders or weights to encourage the tree to produce wide branch angles. An angle of about 60 degree is strongest. More horizontal branches will produce more fruit than vertical growing branches. Some cultivars naturally grow nice wide branches, some need help to attain that shape. If you take the time to train a young tree into an ideal shape, it will be easiest to maintain throughout its life.
We hope this helps you grow pretty and productive apple trees! If you would like to read more articles like this one, please sign up for our newsletter!
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