FIL was left unattended my trimmer and decided to trim the all the ends of the of the leading branches including the top of main trunk of this young apple tree. With my limited knowledge of trees, I believe this will cause the leading branches to stop growing.
Will the tree need to develop new leaders? How will this affect the tree? With the main trunk cut will in no longer grow upward and more outward? It’s only 8-9 feet tall, I wanted it to be taller to provide shade to the house. What can I do?
by Xx_Jack_Mehoff_xX
17 Comments
People do the strangest things sometimes. GL
No it should be fine. I have no knowledge on how to prune fruit trees but with any other tree it will keep growing. But it might send up multiple leaders so you want to prune all of them but one strong one.
If the goal was fruit production, its common to keep the trees short.
If the goal was for shade, then this wasnt the most ideal pruning. My major gripe is the central leader being pruned. But, on this sub, this isnt that bad.
The tree will be fine.
Do not allow that man near a saw again
The tree will be fine. It will now grow out more than it grows up, which is often a desired growth habit with fruit trees.
It will not cause the branches to stop growing. On the contrary, it will stimulate all of the dormant buds just behind the tip to begin growing, leading to even more growth than before.
It looks like he kinda knew what he was doing. I disagree with cutting the central leader, but otherwise this looks pretty alright.
NAA
But I am a home orchard……attempter.
That’s an OK prune job for fruit production. I might have not cut there, but topping the leader at that height isn’t too far off. I’m currently at the try to get the tree to grow OUT and not UP stage. No need to harvest more on a tall ladder.
You seem to have decent structure. Let it grow.
Nah, some professionals would take even more then that off.
He made good cuts back to laterals at least. I’ve seen way worse cuts from nonprofessionals. It’ll be fine
Trees are remarkably resistable. My neighbor one drunken night cut down his beautiful shade tree, with bandsaw mind you. That fucking tree looked dead and about 5 feet tall for a full year. Then a little shoot grew out one side. That was maybe 4 or 5 years ago. Now that little shoot is huge and once again provides shade. The tree looks spectacular and hilarious now but it bounced back.
It looks fine. No where near fucked up.
Topping it sets it height. Does not otherwise have a harmful effect if it was protected with pruning sealer. Otherwise, it will take a while for the cut to heal over.
Not even close. Just be glad it wasn’t me with the trimmers. I would’ve fucked that tree so hard it’ll collapse under the weight of the apples it produces.
He didn’t fuck it up enough in my opinion
Have you seen this guy’s fruit pruning videos on youtube?
They’re freaking great and informative videos:
https://youtu.be/6DrLHqF6YmQ?si=juaAe5tKAGIEp10P
He made good cuts. You keep apple trees pruned shorter so you can reach the fruit, and it encourages more fruiting.
Actually it looks like a good ‘summer’ prune that will encourage flower and fruiting and not a scrum of whippy growth that occurs after a server winter trim.