Mature apple tree pruning

[Hank]

Hi guys, hope everyone is doing well. I looked at a few pruning topics but couldn't find anything that really answered my questions (although I did pick up a ton of good info).

 

Some friends of mine have this mature apple tree in their garden which they love, it provides them with a good crop of cooking apples every year and is a feature of their garden. They want to prune it which I said I was happy to do but I just want to get the balance right.

 

My plan so far is to open up the middle a bit, remove dead and crossing/inward/vertical branches. Is there anything else I should be looking at? Some of the shoots are fairly chunky now, should I be reducing their number or focusing more on smaller branches/shoots? I'm looking at removing about 20% of the canopy overall.

 

Thank you!

[Steven P]

If you are planning to take a fir bit off go slower an over a couple of years else fruit trees will send up a lot of new growth to compensate - 20% sounds about right.

 

I would start with looking at the crossing over bits taking out anything touching another branch then step back to take a look, see how much you have taken off with that.

 

Also while you are there anything that is dead.

 

If it was mine the next step would be to take it down a bit from the top and bring in some of the longer horizontal ones (the thinner ones going left to right in the first picture) and leave it at that for this year. Next year see how it responds, what new growth it sends up then have a look at clearing some space and opening it up a bit. However some apple trees thrive and produce good crops with a more closed in centre.... opening it up might produce fewer larger apples - I know my boys prefer many smaller apples though.

Edited 4 minutes ago by Steven P