Can I prune an espalier apple tree in winter?

Hi. I am new here & not all all the most green fingered person you will ever meet. I have moved into a house recently & the garden has a 2 tier espalier apple tree which seems reasonably well established & bore a lot of healthy apples last year. There are however about 20 or so vertical whippy branches, small diameter but about 3 or 4 feet tall. Is is feasable to cut these back now, & if so by how much. All help & advice would be very much appreciated

 

Hi

And welcome to the GC Forum

You can prune now , can I ask a few questions 1st

is it growing on a wall trained on to wires , and are the branches you want to cut sticking outwards ?

Spruce

 

Not strictly what you're asking about, but thought provoking never the less.

Cheers, Tony.

http://www.weekendgardener.net/tree-information/notching-buds-120912.htm

 

Hi Spruce

Thanks for your reply (& to tony as well). What do you mean by 'wards' - please forgive my ignorance.

The tree is by a fence. How close back to the main branches can I cut the whippy skinny branches?

 

"wards" = outwards, i.e. away from the wall/fence.

See this advice from RHS regarding pruning, it should explain things >
http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=319

 

Hi Dave

Thanks for this

Spruce

 

Thanks to all for the help so far. The whippy branches are mainly gowing vertically, or skywards, although there are some growing horizontally away from the fence. It all looks rather neglected (see attached photos) & I am concerned that my ham fisted efforts may damage the trees. In answer to Spruce's query, the main horizontal brances have been trained on horizontal steel cables

 

Hi looks about 15 20 years old , it need a good pruning also a good tidy up of grass and weeds around the base you could use a mulch plus a plant feed in March , Blood fish and bone or a rose fertiliser you sprinkle on the soil .

You already have the main frame so 99% of the work is already done for you , if I were you, cut all the new growth to 4 or 5 inches from the main branches (thick and much older branches) this will help to encourage flowering/fruiting spurs

start one end of the tree and work your way across , sharp secateurs or leave until you get some.

cut just above a leaf nodes (where the leaves come out of little dormant buds) , and at a angle help the rain to drip off quicker

Have a look into summer pruning apples , makes is even more simpler to do the winter pruning .

Have you had a look the Link Dave added ?

Spruce

 

Must admit I'm not into growing trained fruit trees, but my understanding is that if you want extension growth you prune in winter, if you just want to create fruiting spurs and keep things to a manageable size you prune in August.
Bearing that in mind, my thoughts are the long vertical shoots should have been pruned out back then.
But as they have not been, pruning them hard back now will encourage strong new vertical shoots next summer yet again.
So I'd say make sure you prune them late summer next year, and remove any new growth you dont want,

 

I would advise a winter prune on all apple trees. I run through a little pattern, removing Dead, Damaged, Diseased, and Crossing branches. If you find that you still have many clustered branches simply remove them at a node, keeping the cut as small and as clean as possible. As Spruce quite rightly said cutting the new growth to 4-5 inches, or around a pencil thickness will benefit the tree and potential yields well.