pruning new apple trees

We have recently planted a community orchard in our village and now need to do the first pruning (apples/pears/plums/cherries/quince). Rootstock is M26 or equivalent and they're 3m apart. We planted mostly 'unfeathered maidens' i.e. a single trunk about 4-5 foot high. Some trees have small branches lower down. We are using tree guards 4 feet high (4x4 in square). We have muntjac deer locally (and roe/fallow a bit further away) but have suffered no issues so far.

Pruning - there's a lot of guidance about pruning back to 75cm (i.e. above 4-5 buds that will become branches) but we don't think this will work in tree guards this high as these branches may get constrained.

We've had hopefully good advice to prune back to about 100cm and cut the tree guards down to 90cm, protecting from muntjac while allowing the tree to develop above the tree guard. And for any trees with lower branches below the 4-5 buds to remove these branches). So we would end up with each tree having 4-5 buds above the tree guard and nothing going on below this. We'd welcome thoughts on this.

 

Your described plan of action sounds fine , the height of the pruning cut is only governed by the height at which you wish the trees to branch from .
You could let the maidens grow un pruned this year , and next spring prune to , say 120cm , (a half standard tree ) giving you more protection against possible nibbling by local deer.

 

@shiney I don't think I would be physically capable of pruning my young cherry with blossom on! Isn't that some kind of crime????

 

We reduced the height of the tree guards to about 90cm and pruned the trees to approx 110-120cm. However, 4 of the trees (at the edge of the orchard) have had their tops damaged - looks like they've gone for fresh shoots at the top. It's not (human) vandalism as that would most likely follow the path. So I conclude it must be "full size" deer or very tall muntjacs. We're using biodegradable waterproof cardboard treeguards and they're working fine, except for the height. Should we raise the height of the guards to protect the top (and leave the bottom 15-30cm of the trunk exposed)? Or will that risk a problem there?

 

Maybe raise the existing guards and add spiral tree guards to cover the lower section?