How to Prune Apple and Pear Trees | Espaliered Fruit Tree Pruning

so I've shown you my espaliered trees before and I've got apple and pear out there and I absolutely love the look of the espalier trees and the functionality of it because we're gonna be able to pick fruit for years to come right at our own height but in order to do that we've got to keep them maintained so there's two things we're gonna do out there today and the first thing is we've got to tie the new branches down I'm getting a ton of new growth right now today's July 5th and we're right in the middle of summer and all those those trees are just putting on tons of new growth we want to get those guys tied down to the wires and then we also want to prune back that new growth so that it forces the plant - thanks Johnny so it forces the plant to put on fruiting buds or Spurs they're called so let's get out there right now and let's take a look at what we've got so these are our fruit trees and as you can see they are completely out of control and I've got to get these guys pruned back or we're gonna have problems right now these are just new branches of the tree sending-off they're really tall I've got like two foot of growth on some of these guys and they really are gonna serve no purpose except to get way high up in the sky there where we can't reach the fruit so what we need to do right now while it's summertime is prune these guys back to encourage the fruit Spurs to start growing on down lower on those trees or on the branches anyway and then next spring when everything starts waking up hopefully we'll get more fruit to start coming out instead of all these water branches alright so the first thing I desperately need to do you see this new growth here and this is where the training kind of ended last year I've got this guy tied back with some sisal twine here and now we've got this new growth and I need to continue the training so I'm gonna pull this branch down and I'm gonna tie this guy to the wire here so that it continues its growth out down the rest of the wires I want it to come all the way down to this T post now I want to show you something I kind of I did this little backwards last year and I want to show you why it's important to do this now so here's my Bartlett pear tree right here and you can see tons of new growth coming off of this guy so it desperately needs some pruning sorry about the weeds in the background there makes it a little harder to see the tree but let me show you what's going on so I'm trying to train this tree across this wire here and I wanted to go all the way down to this T post now last summer this is what we had we had all this growth it wasn't quite as much because it was the first year I planted these trees but we had all this growth shooting off right now and right now the growth is supple and soft because it's summertime but I actually waited I left all this new growth until last winter when it was hardened off and then I pulled the branches down along the wire and let me show you what we got the apples aren't as much of a problem but these pears this Bartlett pear here you can see it ended right here it had some die back on this branch right get past this leaf right here it had some die back on this branch and shot off a new sucker in the summertime and I left it grow until winter when it was hard the wood was real lignified and hard before I tried to attach it to this wire and you see the problem I ran into which it's not a big problem it actually adds some character to the branch but it curves down and then because it wasn't very supple I'm gonna have this crook now I'm gonna continue this down over time and I'm gonna you're always gonna have little knobs and Knuckles along here as you're trying to train the thing but that's pretty pronounced there and it was tough to bend it wanted to break right here I had to slowly do this and then tie it down to the to the wire here very carefully because it was I could hear it starting to crack right here a little bit now it's healed up and it's doing great but it's so much easier to do this now now you can see right here in the branch see if I can get in there good enough right here in the branch you can see how it's growing up all the branches want to grow up towards the Sun so I'm gonna have another knuckle there but it's so much easier to work with right now and I'm gonna be able to tie it to this fence so that's the first thing we're going to do with all of these fruit trees we're gonna go ahead and tie them down and get them following their path along the wire now I like to use this sisal twine I've got a roll of it and I just cut off chunks of it it's real good it can rot over time and just fall off the tree although I'll probably come back and snip the old stuff off but I just cut little sections of that we're gonna pull this Apple down and then tie off this section leaving a little bit of space between the branch and the wire because you don't want to choke off the branch it actually will grow in size of course in diameter and you don't want it to be too tight as it grows so let me show you that so you can see where I tied it right there and it's not you know there's plenty of give to it but it's following the same path and and I don't like this some people I've seen they actually take the branch and twist it around as they're tying it I don't want to do that because over time this is going to harden off this branch and it will become formed around that wire and I don't want wire growing through my tree as it gets bigger and bigger I suppose you could cut it and slide it out the long way but I really don't want to do that I've just been tying these branches right along the top of the wire so eventually I can remove the wire someday we'll see if that ever becomes a reality but I'm gonna continue now tying this guy down now you can see it's already following the path so so much easier to do in the summertime all right so I'm gonna finish tying up all these trees following the wire here and then we'll talk about pruning all right so I've got all the branches tied up horizontally and that part is done now we're getting down to the fun part and that is the pruning let's take a look at these guys to see what we're gonna do all right so let's take a look at these trees and see what type of branches we've got so there's two types of branches and the first one right here are just the main tree branches these are gonna grow up really tall their water suckers they're just going to shoot straight up into the air and not provide any fruit until down the road when they start shooting off little fruit spurs from the side and that is the second type of branch this the fruit spur so the fruit spurs you can see here's one with a pair right on it now and they're very short little branches that shoot off and generally have a bunch of leaves all kind of crammed down on top of each other there you can see that's only about an inch long and then it's got some fruit coming off of it here's another fruit spur right here and actually this one has a lot of them you can see this was last year's growth right here and then this is this year's growth it's another little fruit spur there all the leaves are tightly compacted down in there there's the the node spacing is real tight here's another fruit spurn you can actually see a pear on the end of that guy so what our goal is we're not going to take any of those fruit Spurs off we want to leave all of those on what we want to do is prune back these big sucker branches that are just going to shoot straight up into the air and this is where we want to prune them so you can see this is one of them right here you want to look down near the base where it first started growing in the in this early springtime and you can see right here immediately up this branch it's got one little node and then there's three leaves altogether and then if you move up a little further you've got another leaf and then a separation and then another leaf and then a separation and another leaf so what you want to do is look for that little spot right there on the branch where it first comes up that group of leaves they're called basil leaves and then you want to count 1 2 3 leaves up and snip it off and then all this growth is going to be gone and all of these pear and apple trees are going to be the same for that so let's go ahead and do that show you what I'm talking about alright so like I said you can see the three little basil leaves right in here and I'm going to count up three of these main leaves and we're gonna go ahead right here let's show that right here and snip maybe up about a half inch above so you can see now skip this leaf out of the way you can see now I've got the three basil leaves and then I've got one two three leaves we snipped it off and what that's going to do now is on these main branches that are shooting up there's a there's a higher concentration of auxins in it root of not rooting but hormones in it that make it want to shoot up and reach for the light and become dominant and when you snip that down it redirects the plants hormones down into other side buds here that are going to shoot off and the hope is that the new buds that shoot off will become those little fruit branches that we are talking about the fruit Spurs and then next year we'll get a much higher production of fruit on this guy and we'll typically get a better production of fruit Spurs by doing the pruning right now at this time of the summer versus in the wintertime if you do the pruning in the winter time it's going to send more of these branches up as you can see I did the pruning last winter and I'm just getting tons of these sucker branches coming up but by doing the pruning now we're gonna get some fruit spur starting to grow on these side branches and then they're gonna set and get ready to start producing fruit next spring so I'm going to continue on with all these guys and do my pruning just like I showed you and show you what everything looks like when it's done all right so I've got this first tree done you can see look how scraggly all those guys down the way look here versus this one right here lean back up and get a good shot of it you can see how nice that looks now that it's pruned up and this is going to be the scaffolding for all of our fruit to grow on all those little fruit Spurs are gonna start growing off of the buds that are down below where we pruned and we're gonna get hopefully a ton more fruit next year now you know you can never you never know what the weather's gonna do or what the seasons are gonna do but yet you know you can hope for the pests and you can prune as if it is going to work out good the other thing that you can do what probably the last thing that I would say is I'll probably come back through here and we're a lot of these hope to see I missed one I'll have to snip that little guy back a little ways but one of these you can do is start pruning away the inside branches I'm gonna leave everything along the row here on each side top and bottom but some of these branches in here see how these guys are both pointing inward I may snip this one off right here and I may snip this guy off here because you want everything to kind of like leave these guys you want these to grow outward and out that way like they're doing but you don't want this stuff growing in upon itself you want to give plenty of room for error to circulate in there and keep the plant healthy but it's already really starting to look nice I'm gonna go ahead and finish pruning up all the rest of these guys all the way down and I'll show you the end result Oh real quick one more thing I didn't mention so I've reached the end of the line here for this branch this lateral branch here and it's up against this post so it's come as far as I want it to go I'm going ten foot between each tree from one end all the way to the other end of the tree and so I'm gonna come back here and I'm gonna snip this off right here and that's gonna force more growth from the branch back and it's just going to become a fuller healthier plant all right so I finished up three of the trees so far and I've got to say they are looking pretty nice man so I love how these guys look and I had to come in after a little while after I got done with all three of these apple trees because it just got super hot yesterday but I am gonna get these pear trees done you can see the difference let's walk down here and take a look doesn't that look nice it's just all pruned up real nice and now because we pruned this up these guys right here I mean these these were way up here I mean there were another two-foot a growth on that but all these little buds down here it will encourage them to have little little fruit Spurs come out of them and it will just get a higher percentage of fruits per so the next year we get a lot more fruit on this tree and then it's got plenty of leaves left on it still to just be a little solar panels and collect energy and just store it in the roots for the winter so that next year we can get tons of fruit coming off of these guys now you can see the difference look at the pears man they're just out of control just like the apples were but then that just look cool once you get it done and it just keeps everything nice and contained and right at a perfect height where you can walk up to it and pick now I'm probably going to eventually let these things get up to about this high next year I'll probably get a few of these buds breaking and coming up a little higher and they'll shoot up again and then I'll prune them back and I'll probably end up you know just about my eye height here so that I've got plenty of plenty of tree to pick fruit off of but I just love this espalier look man it is just so cool so I'll get the rest of the pears done here and we'll show you what they look like when they're done and there they are guys all finished up I love that shot isn't that cool just a single row right down there you can walk on either side and pick fruit I just love this espalier style of pruning fruit trees I had to pull a few weeds there so I could get this shot from this height but we got to get this area cleaned out man but in that cool just pretty dang slick I just love how these things look that is just so cool let's go check out them pear trees as I was pruning I noticed some more pears I didn't know where they're before I found one right in here we've got a little Bartlett right there well Bartlett over here we're getting some size on them guys I think there's one more somewhere in there and then we've got our Thomas pear and I picked out these varieties just because of the pollination so we've got Bartlett over here then we've got Comus and then we've got moon glow and they were all supposed to pollinate each other very well so that's why the varieties I definitely wanted the Bartlett and so I picked these varieties out to match with that one but I it turned out I actually the this is the Comus and it's got a couple little pairs but I actually picked the Moonglow not because I knew anything about the pears but because I was just hoping for because the this particular variety this Moonglow was supposed to pollinate the Bartlett in the comments really well in this turnout to actually have more pears on it than any of them and they look really neat they've got that reddish kind of tint to it so pretty cool huh we got these guys all pruned back and they're looking really nice and they're gonna do real well for us come next year all those little buds that were gonna be shoots just shooting straight up for the sky are now gonna be hopefully most of them little fruit Spurs and that's because we've pruned them right now through the summer time now you can see a little bit of growth there at the bottom and this pear also has some we've got the rootstock they're starting to shoot up and I didn't prune all that back for a reason I think I talked about this one of my other videos I'm gonna save these yeah I'm gonna let them grow right now and I'm actually gonna do some stooling where I can put a pot around all of this and I'm gonna fill it full of bark and get them to grow roots so I've got some root stock so that I can do some grafting of these different varieties of pears and I've already got the nice dwarf root stock right there to work with so anyway I'll make a video of that when I end up doing that but we'll go ahead and show you guys how to stool these guys and get your own root stock I am just really happy with how these guys all turned out let's get one more shot here all the way down it's really cool looking right at the perfect height for picking fruit well guys as usual I still haven't gotten around to putting this video completely together and it's been a few weeks since the last shot I took so we might as well get out there and do an update and take a look at these little fruit trees and see all the new buds and how they're developing let's go in that just a beautiful shot guys love love love these espalier trees man they're just so cool to look at and they're just so awesome man gonna be able to pick fruit right at our level here they are like I said it's been a few weeks and we've got all them little buds remember so we came along and we pruned back all these branches we pruned them all back and then we've got a lot of little buds opening up right here and it looks to me like these guys are gonna be fruit buds fruit Spurs right there and the reason I'm thinking that is because they've got so many leaves on each of these little buds that are sprouting and usually the fruit Spurs always have a tunnel leaves see look at that there's a shorter fruit spur that's grown this year and it's got a lot of little leaves coming out on short little stem and I have a feeling all these little guys are gonna be fruit Spurs because that's what they tell us that's what they tell us guys if you prune in the summer you're going to get fruit the next spring or you gonna get flowers the next spring you prutte the next fall you're pruning the winter you get them tall suckers there we go it's looking good let's look at the next one Johnny's putting his two cents in look at that that's a fruit spur man that is awesome that is just awesome I'm impressed and these plants have only been in the ground two years they're only a few years older than that and you know I was a little worried at first thinking are we doing the wrong thing by letting these things go to fruit and trying to get them to fruit so young but the truth is they've been in all this manure and woodchips for so long now for a couple years and this stuff is so rich I think they're gonna do fine I think they're gonna just do awesome I'm not even worried about it look at this guy's these are fruit Spurs man we're gonna have a lot of apples next year look at that pretty awesome huh now there's a couple shoots here this is I think this is Golden Delicious yellow delicious yeah there it is yellow delicious and this one right here there's a little sucker that's coming up but that's okay I'm gonna leave it because my plan is I'm gonna get my own roof stock going we'll see if I have any ready by then but I'm gonna get some root stock going and I'm gonna take these cuttings as scions next year and we're gonna graph them onto our own roof stock now that may be a sucker right there I don't know if that's gonna be a fruit spur but a lot of these I believe our fruit Spurs will find out let's go down take a look at this guy look at that all that short little growth with all those leaves I think we're gonna get this thing figured out guys I really do I think we're gonna figure it out figure it out the pair of trees that come along a little more slowly you can see the buds it's been the same amount of time since I pruned them but they're just taking a little bit longer I guess that's just the nature of pears they're just taking a little bit longer for their new little buds to shoot up but we'll see what happens and that's all the pair of varieties doing the same thing just taking a little bit longer special bit especially this one this is the Comus that's the calmness you can see they're not all the way out yet there's our moon glow they're all in pairs they are looking good can't believe we've got so many pairs on that young tree pretty cool huh guys alright guys so that's all there is to it took a little effort up front but in the end hopefully next year we're gonna get a ton more fruit Spurs and a lot more production it'll be here too in the ground or after two years of them in the ground and I'm really excited to see how this turns out next year so for a heavier fruit production prune in the summertime and if you want more water sprouts shooting up and you want them trees to grow tall and big prune in the wintertime so hope you guys like this video if you did please like it subscribe if you want to follow along heaven awesome week and I'll see you guys in the next video adios [Music] [Music]

Channel: Mike Kincaid

Views: 73,147

Rating: 4.9460611 out of 5

Keywords: fruit tree pruning, how to prune, apple tree, fruit trees, apple tree pruning, how to prune fruit trees, pruning apple trees, how to prune an apple tree, fruit tree, pear pruning, orchard management, how to prune a fruit tree, pruning fruit trees, apple trees, how to prune apple trees, pear tree, how to prune trees, pruning trees in summer, pruning apples for fruit production, how to prune fruit trees espalier, spur pruning apples, how to prune apple espalier tree, winter

Id: EHl2qdMgl00

Length: 21min 26sec (1286 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 01 2018