What did you do in your orchard today?

[CrealCritter]

I watched three vids of how to prune apple trees. The best one was from UC Santa Cruz. So I went at it. Got five of them done, and then hubs got the very tall water sprouts cut more than half way down.

The UC Santa Cruz teacher said that if you trim those leaf bud branches (diff from fruit buds) about half way down, you'll get solid MORE leaf growing branch. If you cut it way down, then you'll still get crazy growth, but it won't go as high. If you cut off 1/4 of the leaf branches, you get very modest growth. So I cut them off as much as hubs could reach with extension pruners. As I am shrinking as I age, and since I'm not stable on a stool in mud, its what I needed to do.

The copper oil suspension spray might happen today. Its gonna rain later on tonite, so I want it to have a chance to dry.

Most apples varieties grow on spurs (short nubs on banches and trunk) the spurs grow like a 1/4" per season, they start to develop on second year wood. I think I would leave those alone, I personally feel it's better to thin set apples than to not set enough apples.

Otherwise remove water sprouts, and crossed branches. Prune to open center for good air flow and good form with strong scaffold branches to support apple load. Remove dead and weak branches all the way to the truck or where they orginated from.

Some apple varieties are tip bearing vs spur bearing so puring those is a little differnt. You want to prune to produce a bunch of new growth on those varieties.

Check your varieties to determine if spur or tip bearing.

Now that you've pruned, I agree it would a good time to spray a good dormant spray/fungicide (copper) mix to reduce the chance of infection of new wounds. I like to think of it similarly to, I cut myself, I'm going to attend to my own wound.

Thanks you so much for sharing. I learned something new. We are always learning which is such a great thing.

Jesus is Lord and Christ