Page 16 - ALG Issue 3 2022

how to...
Are your best fruit out of reach at the top of the tree?
Train your trees so you can reach all the best fruit, as taught to me by the Agricultural research and development team in Nottinghamshire many years ago.
One general guide is to never take more than a quarter of the tree’s weight off in a year.
Understand that trees are dominated by THE APICAL TENDENCY. In other words, the tree needs to get as near the sun as possible, so the energy created by roots etc. accumulates at the top of the tree, and the highest branch grows faster than those below, and the fruit at the top gets most sunlight so grows biggest.
We can manipulate this by clever training and pruning.
With a new tree, the training is simple... use weight (a plastic bottle of water is ideal as you can adjust the weight easily by adding water) to hold the strongest branches out at an angle, leaving only the weakest to have the highest tip. Leaving the weakest highest is the way we allow the tree to respond to APICAL DOMINANCE. If you leave nothing, the tree will make many shoots that you don’t want.
The wide angle will make the tree stronger. It is important that the tip of the weighted branch is higher than its base, so energy is still travelling upwards thus preventing apical dominance from making lots of woody shoots along the length, and the tip from dying back.
The trained branches will be exposed to more sunlight which encourages fruit buds instead of wood buds. If you look closely, you will be able to tell a fat fruit bud from a slim vegetative bud.
In July, after the June drop, some pruning will help expose fruit to sunshine and allow air to circulate in the branches reducing the risk of fungal attacks.
You simply shorten the new growth that has occurred since March by half or more to let the light in – remembering apical dominance, so leave a few of
the shortest new growth. This is a judgement call as each variety differs in response to the training.
In winter, prune out any diseased or broken wood. Thin out the new growth so the tree remains open to light. If there is room for more branches to
be trained, weight them before they get too strong. If there are enough branches, take the ones you shortened in July down to the base or to one or two buds, as they have the potential to produce fruit in the second year.
If you have an ‘already too tall’ tree, it may take 3 or 4 years to train it down so you can pick the best fruit. This
is because removing one big branch each year is necessary. The aim first
is to open the centre to light, so study it carefully. Decide which main branch is mostly in the centre of the tree and heading upwards and remove it as low as you can while keeping the rest of the main branches.
That is all you do the first winter. If you are starting in summer, shorten as many of the long new growths as you can.
Each winter remove a big branch till your tree is the height you desire, and you can reach all the fruit
The second winter you choose another big branch to remove, trying to keep the tree physically balanced so the weight is distributed all round.
Much depends on how the tree reacted to last year’s pruning. It may have made a new growth that can become a new branch that you can weight down to fill the gap you’ve made with the second large cut.
Each July, shorten the long new growths so the sun can get to the lower fruit, and the lower branches, to make fruit buds for next year.
Each winter remove a big branch till your tree is the height you desire, and you can reach all the fruit.
Ann Jackman
16 Allotment and Leisure Gardener