Well established apple tree

is too tall and fat! The top branches are too thick to get a fruit picker in/ladder through and some are beyond my each even when balancing gracefully on a ladder. Logic tells me this is a waste as the fruit just drops when it's been pecked a wee bit and illogically this just annoys me. Can I simply thin out an apple tree to encourage growth lower down now?

Thanks chaps.

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner

You can cut it back quite hard in the winter, best to do it over a couple of years though. Cut out any dead or diseased branches first.

 

Only thing I would add to Zigs comments is "does it give you all the apples you can eat, and store to fill as much suitable storage space you have and/or for all you will eat for as long as they keep, plus give-aways"?

If so I would leave it be, and just prune-for-fruit.

We have mature, huge, apple trees here, most of the the fruit goes to waste. We have a pucker apple storage rack, and store fruit etc. plus I have also planted 10 new apple trees (of varieties that we favour for flavour and/or keeping quality) and once their harvest comes on stream they may well take over from the mature trees.

 

Thanks chaps. It does produce a lot of fruit, certainly enough to store which is something we're doing for the first time this year ( we've only had the tree 2 years, since we moved in). As it's so busy in the branches getting anything but the most prominent apples is a right faff. May get at it with some tools when there's less leaves and I can see what's going on.

 

We only pick the apples we can get to easily on our trees - and still have more than enough for us, so the rest just fall ... We bought a couple of pigs Autumn-before-last and they sorted out all the fallers (we took the apples to the pigs, rather than the other way round! so they didn't destroy the orchard soil!). Got a fabulous freezer full of Pork and would happily do that every year.

 

Hi BZ, As Zigs said, if you want to thin, take out any dead or diseased branches first, then take out any crossing branches / twigs. That in itself will let air and light into the tree. The old advice used to be that you should be able to throw your hat (??) up through the centre of the tree. That's assuming it's growing in the classic 'goblet' shape! As said, Good luck

 

Thank you!

 

I've got a couple of out of control apple trees, it seems no matter how I prune they just get bigger.
Winter pruning just encouraged lots of leafy growth, unless you just lop branches, which can reduce the size.
In recent years I've not picked many apples from mine, the starlings make sure of that, massing in them most afternoons in late summer.
Not something I can do much about, they just peck the fruit before it ripens, most then just rots.