Every owner summer cottage dreams that garden trees gave to the rich, bountiful harvest, and the fruits delighted with their bright color, aroma and size. To achieve all this on your own personal plot, do not forget about pruning. And if you haven’t done it yourself until today and don’t know where to start, carefully read this article. She will help you understand everything correctly.

Pruning of apple tree seedlings is carried out in two ways: climatic (thinning of branches) and shortening. In the process of shortening, it is necessary to remove part of the fruit-bearing, perennial or annual branch. Thanks to this type of pruning, you can cause the shoots of apple tree seedlings to thicken, help eliminate the overload of the tree with fruits, and slow down the aging process. Shortening will promote the awakening of young buds, change the direction of growth and increase branching.

Thinning is the circular removal of shoots at their base. First of all, get rid of deformed, frozen, dried branches that thicken the crown.

These two types of pruning are carried out simultaneously, regardless of the growth of the seedling and its fruiting. Pruning is an important and serious agrotechnical method. It must be carried out at a certain time, the most optimal is when the seedling is in a dormant period. Therefore, keep in mind that in each climatic region pruning is carried out in different times. So, if you live in a warm southern area, hold it in the autumn-winter period, and for residents middle zone It is advisable to do this procedure at the end of the winter season.

Scheme for pruning seedlings

If you prune in winter, pay attention to the temperature. It should be no lower than -10 degrees Celsius. It's even better if you wait until the thaw period. If you prune seedlings when severe frosts, the tissue on the sections will begin to freeze, which can subsequently lead to the development of diseases. And wood becomes very fragile in severe frosts.

In the summer, so-called green pruning is carried out, which includes pinching young shoots. As a rule, such pruning is not very common and is considered auxiliary.

Before you begin the pruning process, pay attention to the age of the fruit tree and the characteristics of its varieties. It is also necessary to take into account the size of the crown, the nature and type of wood. Thus, vigorous trees need to be pruned lightly and not as often as, for example,. If this is neglected and pruned heavily, it will promote strong and rapid growth of new shoots. And as a result, the crown of the tree will thicken greatly.

In the first year after planting the seedling, it is necessary to carry out the first pruning. If it is planted with unbranched annuals, they need to be crowned - make a cut of the annuals. Its height will depend on the growth of the rootstock. On average it is approximately 90 centimeters. Varieties on medium-sized and seedling rootstocks are cut higher than dwarf and semi-dwarf ones. As soon as the shoots grow, it is advisable to remove leaves in the shamba area (snipping). In the event that the seedlings are planted as two-year-olds, it will be necessary to shorten the skeletal branches to the outer buds. As a result, we will achieve expansion of the fruit tree. The order of pruning shoots is as follows: the upper ones are cut by 2/3 or 3/4, and the lower ones by 1/3 or even less.

If you prune seedlings that have not formed correctly (have a one-sided crown), the branches must be shortened to lateral buds, which will be directed exactly in the direction where there are no skeletal branches.

Pay attention to the angle at which the skeletal branches deviate from the trunk. If the angle of departure is very sharp, the growth of the skeletal branch will significantly outstrip the rate of formation of fruit wood, which can lead to loss of yield. Such skeletal branches can also contribute to low photosynthesis, negatively affecting the light in the crown. They are very weakly attached to the trunk and in case bountiful harvest the weight of the fruit may break off. It follows from this that sharp angles during the formation of young fruit trees, it is necessary to increase to at least 50 degrees. In this case, they use wooden spacers or use guy wires.

And already a year after planting, the skeletal branches can be pruned, moving them to the outside.

Take into account the relationship between the growth of the lateral processes and the conductor. Everything will depend on the type of crown. If it is spreading, then the conductor itself should be 10 or 15 centimeters higher than the side branches, and if it is pyramidal, then by all of 25 centimeters. If the central conductor is missing or weakened, it can be replaced with a process that will be located lower.

Methods for forming the crown of seedlings

There are quite a few options for forming the crown of trees. And if you know at least a few, you will be able to independently and most importantly competently form the correct crown for your trees. Let's look at the simplest forms. One of the best and easiest is the whorled-tiered one. For its formation, it is better when the tree has a short trunk and branching begins at a height of 60 centimeters. If the shoots are located above the specified height, then in the future, when it becomes tall, it will be difficult to harvest from it.

An annual apple tree planted in your garden needs correct formation trunk Therefore, after a year, in the spring, it is necessary to trim the top into a spike. They do this based on the rules, namely, at a height of 60 centimeters, 4 buds are counted, and the next two after them are plucked out, leaving 2 buds located higher in reserve. In the future, to obtain a vertical shape, the strongest and strongest emerging upper shoot will be tied to the thorn. This will create a new top. Don't forget about the second, weaker sprout. It needs to be cut out. Also, the thorn will not be needed; it will be removed next year.

It is better if the crown begins in the form of several branches close together; they will form a whorl. The distance between such branches should be no more than 15 centimeters. And for this we left the lower buds at the very beginning. After pruning, new shoots will appear from them, which will subsequently form first-order branches.

Scheme of apple tree crown formation

Depending on the number of branches in the whorl, the development of the tip will depend.

If there is only one branch below and no others, this is not very good and it is better to refuse to buy such a seedling. And vice versa, if there are more than 4 of them, then oppression and weak growth of the top of the trunk will occur.

All unnecessary branches must be completely removed by 3-4 years. In this case, it is desirable that the angle of departure of the whorl be from 90 to 40 degrees. If this is not observed, and it is blunt (more than 90 degrees), the branches will sag and grow poorly. If the angle is less than 40 degrees, such branches will break due to the weight of the fruit.

It is not enough to plant an apple tree and wait for a good harvest. It will take some effort to make it bear fruit. And it is advisable to start with trimming and shaping the crown. The procedures must be carried out while the apple tree is young and its branches are thin. If you don’t do this in time, you will often be surprised by a small harvest. Thanks to proper pruning, your garden trees will be beautiful, hardy and productive.

Video “Formation of the crown of an apple tree seedling”

This video will show how to properly form the crown of an apple tree seedling.

Home Articles How and what apple tree seedlings should be purchased for planting

How and what apple tree seedlings should be purchased for planting

Apple trees are usually planted with formed two-year or one-year-old seedlings. The desire of some gardeners to buy older and larger trees most often ends in disappointment. The fact is that three- to four-year-old plants do not take root well due to large losses of roots when digging them up. Do not avoid one-year-olds; two years after planting, they are equal in growth to two-year-olds planted at the same time and begin to bear fruit at the same time.

When purchasing, carefully inspect the seedlings. A one-year-old must be at least 1 m tall with a stem diameter no thinner than 1 cm. A good two-year-old has a height of 1.5 m and 3-5 side branches extending from the central conductor in different directions. The trunk should be smooth, with healthy bark, its diameter at a height of 5 cm (above the grafting site) is at least 2 cm. It is advisable that the conductor be 15-20 cm higher than the side branches. Pay special attention to the roots, the survival rate and further growth of the plants depend on them. The roots of good seedlings are fibrous, with 3-5 main branches, 25-30 cm long. They should not be dry or rotten, without darkened tissue on sections, cancerous growths (swellings similar to a walnut), or deep tears between the roots.

According to the rules, all seedlings must be sold without leaves. If they were not removed before selling, do it yourself immediately after purchase. The reason for such haste is due to the fact that the leaves evaporate moisture from the seedling, and the root system, deprived of soil, cannot replenish it.

When purchasing apple tree seedlings, keep in mind that it is better to buy a strong, powerful one-year-old than a two-year-old with a well-developed above-ground part but a weak root system.

To protect fruit trees from death in harsh winters, they are grafted onto standard and skeleton-forming plants. The variety used as a standard and skeleton-former must be winter-hardy, vigorous, so that the annual plant can be crowned at the required height, with a strong crown skeleton that can withstand a large load of the crop, with strong angles (60-70°) of skeletal branches, have good compatibility with the scion.
The Sharopai variety meets all these requirements for an apple tree, and Tema for a pear. Sharopai is well compatible even with indicator varieties - Papirovka and Babushkino, which are characterized by poor compatibility with some rootstocks. It is better to use Antonovka vulgare seedlings as a rootstock for growing standard and skeleton-forming apple trees. Sharopai is grafted onto this seedling by budding in the summer or cuttings in the spring. After the annual plant grafted with Sharopay is obtained, the required variety is grafted at a height of 110-130 cm ( rice. 19). This height will protect against low temperatures on the soil surface. In the future, the crown will be formed from the grafted cuttings. To increase the winter hardiness of the standard-former, the shoots that appear on the standard for the first two to three years do not need to be cut out, but only pinched over the fifth or sixth leaf and only after two to three years of fruiting, cut into a ring.

The gardener must be patient: having planted an annual apple tree on a tall rootstock, you need to wait five or even six years for the first apples. But you really want to see the swollen fruit buds early in the spring, watch the apples fill up all summer, and enjoy tasting them in the fall! Is there really no way to bring this pleasant moment closer? - Of course you can!

Choosing seedlings

Planning for future fruiting dates begins from the moment you select seedlings when purchasing. A tree with an open root system will take longer to take root than its “brothers” from containers. True, a one-year-old seedling with an open root system will take root faster than the same two-year-old one, since its roots are less damaged when dug out of the soil. But a seedling from a container does not need to take root: its root system will immediately begin to develop the fertile soil that you have lovingly prepared for it.

One of my students shared her observations during lectures. She read somewhere that the root system container seedling you need to shake it slightly so that the roots get more freedom than they had - they say, after this they grow faster. My experience shows that when planting in summer, the root system should not be disturbed: just crumble a clod of earth, and the top leaves will immediately wilt. But when planting in the spring, before the leaves bloom, and in the middle of autumn, you can already shake the clod of earth a little and straighten the roots.

I also noticed that the longer the seedling is in the container, the faster it then begins to bear fruit. Back in the first issues of the magazine, I described a story about a pear in a container, which was nibbled on by mice in winter. The question arose: throw it away or fight for the life of the tree? We decided to save. My son treated the pear with sorrel, but they kept it in the container for another whole season: it was necessary to make sure that the tree was cured. After planting in a permanent place, the pear blossomed in the third year.

Advice:

The longer the root system of the plant is in cramped conditions, the faster the fruiting period will begin. However, the growth of the tree in this case will slow down somewhat.

The experience of Chinese peasants is very interesting. To get stunted tangerine trees and speed up fruiting, they bend when planting main root loop. After this operation, tangerine trees form a smaller and more branched root system, become stunted and begin to produce crops earlier.

Dwarf apple trees

As a rule, huge apple trees grow in our gardens, which increase in size both tall and wide. They begin to bear fruit in the fifth, sixth, or even tenth year. Summer varieties begin to produce crops in the fifth or sixth year, and winter varieties even later.

In Europe, many gardens have long grown apple trees on dwarf or semi-dwarf rootstocks. The first grow up to two meters, and the second - up to three and a half. Despite the fact that Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin believed that dwarf gardens had a great future, and Valentin Ivanovich Budagovsky worked all his life on breeding winter-hardy dwarf rootstocks, tall trees predominate in our gardens. But apple trees on dwarf and semi-dwarf rootstocks begin to bear fruit already in the third or fourth year, and it happens that they bloom in the second - right in containers.

Formative pruning

Let's take a closer look at the inclination of the branches and the laying of fruit buds on them (Fig. 1). The more the branch tends to a horizontal position, the more fruit buds are laid on it. To bring the branches into a horizontal position, drive a stake next to each of them and tie the branches to it. However, I prefer another method: pruning to the outer bud (Fig. 2). The bud that wakes up after such pruning independently produces a shoot, bent to a horizontal position, on which fruit buds are quickly formed.
Already in the fall you can determine whether your tree will bear fruit. If ringlets, spears, fruit twigs or fruit shoots appear on an apple or pear tree, on which fruit buds have formed (see photo), then the tree will bloom in the spring.

The pattern here is this: if there is strong growth of a young fruit tree, then, as a rule, fruit buds are not formed. To accelerate fruiting, it is necessary to weaken growth, that is, to redistribute nutrients, accruing to the tree. This task can be accomplished using formative pruning and bending of branches.

Low growing varieties

These apple trees grow no higher than two meters, begin to bear fruit in the third year after planting as annual seedlings, are not inferior to Antonovka in winter hardiness and produce large fruits.

Unfortunately, my experience in growing these varieties was unsuccessful. I received the seedlings by mail late in the fall, did not have time to plant them and sent them to the graveyard. In winter, mice damaged their bark, so much so that only one seedling out of three was saved. But these are things of bygone days. Now we equip the winter shelter in such a way that no mice even come close to it. We use all means: spruce and pine spruce branches, burnt pieces of natural fur, cloth soaked in kerosene; spread out the thistle and burdock seeds.

I will give the main characteristics of some varieties of naturally low-growing apple trees that can be grown here, in Leningrad region, including in gardening Babino.u

Advice:

Apple trees on dwarf or semi-dwarf rootstocks bear the earliest fruit, so impatient gardeners should purchase just such seedlings.

Sokolovskoe. Winter ripening variety, winter-hardy, scab-resistant. If you graft it onto a short rootstock, the height of the tree will be only 1 m 20 cm. The fruits are large, up to 190 g, greenish-yellow with a dark red blush. The yield, according to the books, should reach 85 kg, but I can’t imagine how such a low-growing tree can produce so many apples. We will grow and check.

Winter low growing. Ripening in October, storage until March-April. The variety is winter-hardy and resistant to scab. Fruits up to 170g, greenish-yellow with a red blush, the pulp has a good dessert taste.

Down to earth. Autumn variety, high winter hardiness, resistant to scab. According to the description, this variety begins to bear fruit even in the second year after planting with annual seedlings. If grafted on seed rootstocks, it reaches 2.5 m, if on dwarf rootstocks - 1.5 m. The fruits are greenish-yellow with a dark red blush, good sweet and sour taste.

I well imagine this low tree covered with bright yellow-red fruits, and I really want to grow it in my garden! And you won’t have to wait long for fruiting, although our zone of risky farming can present any “gifts”: for example, this year there will be no apples at all in our entire gardening. A late spring frost, from June 8 to 9, destroyed all the flower buds. The apple trees were ready to bloom, but this never happened. The buds turned rusty, dried out and fell off. True, the pears managed to bloom earlier, but many of the ovaries also fell off due to this frost: traces of freezing were clearly visible on the cuts and outside. One single frosty night in June destroyed the harvest of plums, cherries and apples. But if some other natural disasters do not strike our dear and beloved Babino, then this year’s sea buckthorn harvest will be excellent - we will have to sit on the trees all autumn and painstakingly collect this miracle berry, which in winter replaces both apples and pears combined. But this is already a “lyrical digression”...

Caring for fruit trees also affects the formation of fruit buds.

Until mid-summer, you need to fertilize with nitrogen, which causes increased growth of green mass, and in the second half of summer you should use fertilizers with a low nitrogen content, which promotes the formation of fruit buds, as well as preparing seedlings for winter.

In the first half of summer, trees are fertilized with an infusion of manure with herbs and weeds, and in the second half with ash. From mineral fertilizers use “Kemira” (“spring-summer” and “autumn”) - according to the standards indicated on the packaging.

I begin almost every lecture with the words: “My dear gardeners! You and I are happy people! We have land. We can plant plants that we like, help them grow in our difficult conditions, and they will thank us - either with their fruits or with lovely flowers. Talk to plants - and they will hear you!” (Take care of the plants, love them - and they will definitely reciprocate your feelings!)

“Garden Affairs” No. 8 (24), 2008

Pruning young apple trees determines the future appearance of the tree and its productivity. Thanks to the processing of branches and the formation of the crown, good illumination of all its parts is created and a harmonious relationship is maintained between the growth of the tree and its fruiting.

A young apple tree, like many fruit trees, can easily break branches. But, thanks to pruning, the branches become stronger, and the crown becomes uniform and not very dense. This guarantees good harvest and quality fruits.

Methods for forming the crown of apple tree seedlings

The main task of pruning apple trees is to create a balance between old branches and shoots of the current year: there should be approximately the same number of them. Pruning must be done so that the future crown has the correct structure.

There are several ways to form the crown of seedlings. The formed crown can be spindle-shaped, sparsely layered, medium-standard, combined, palmette and other forms. For a novice gardener, it will be easier to form a crown using a sparsely layered method. This is a method in which it is necessary to leave 4-6 skeletal branches at a distance of 30-40 cm from each other.

Medium-standard forms are very convenient for formation, in which the lower skeletal branch is located at a height of 80-110 cm. To create this form, all branches of apple tree seedlings located below must be cut out.

Timing for pruning young apple trees

Pruning and care of young apple trees begins early spring before the beginning of the growing season in the first year after planting. Spring pruning of apple trees is very important for the beauty and health of the trees, because after it the trees grow more intensively throughout the summer period.

There is also summer pruning, but it is usually used to shorten the shoots of the current year. It stimulates the formation of fruit buds, improves the size and color of fruits.

Pruning annual apple trees

When planting an annual unbranched apple tree seedling in a permanent place for the first time, you simply need to remove it at about a height of one meter from the ground. This will allow side shoots to form this year, and then it will be possible to form a crown.

If a young annual apple tree or seedling is already branched, then it is necessary to remove all of it side shoots up to 70 cm from the soil level. Among the shoots that grow higher, remove those that form with the trunk acute angle. Those shoots that are located at a wide (close to 90°) angle are shortened to the third or fifth bud. If the shoot has a wide angle, then this branch will provide the tree with a strong crown in the future. It is also important that trees with almost horizontal branches begin to bear fruit earlier.

Pruning two-year-old apple trees

A two-year-old apple tree consists of a stem and several shoots extending from it. For such seedlings, it is necessary to leave three to five most developed shoots with wide angles. These will be the main branches of the tree. The remaining shoots need to be removed. The central conductor is formed above a more developed bud, from which a vertical shoot will develop. It should be approximately 4-5 buds higher than all skeletal branches. The remaining shoots are cut so that the lower ones are longer (up to 30 cm), and those higher are shorter. Thus, the main skeleton of the most popular crown of young two-year-old apple trees is formed - strong and round.

Over the next three to five years, it is better not to trim young apple trees or shorten their shoots. Otherwise, there may be delays in their fruiting. But still, a little treatment is sometimes necessary for diseased and broken branches. They need to be removed from the very base. In the case of very active tree growth, so that the tiers of branches are not too distant from each other, you can shorten the conductor, but do not forget that it remains the leading one.

To form a crown of the correct shape, in addition to pruning, other techniques are used: for example, changing the direction of growth or the inclination of a branch. You can change the angle of branches by installing spacers between the trunk and the branch. You can also use a guy to pull a branch to a peg driven into the ground. And empty areas of the crown can be filled by changing the direction of the branch.

In order for the young trees of your garden to bring you a harvest in the shortest possible time, you need to look after them proper care. The Sovereign company is always ready to help you in this noble cause. We provide services for pruning and shaping the crown of trees in Moscow and the Moscow region at a professional level and at affordable prices. With us you are guaranteed to achieve success in gardening. And your well-groomed young garden will very soon be able to please you with a rich harvest of ripe and plump apples.

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