I'm working little by little to whip our backyard into shape. During the process I came upon this tree. We have Virginia Creeper growing up over our fence and I'm working on cutting it all down but last years storm threw a lot of the vines over the fence and entangled themselves with this tree.
It seems the people that lived here before us were trying to train it against this little wooden fence thing. I didn't know what it was but when I was pulling stuff up today I saw a label for a Gravestein Apple tree. Here's some pics and then some questions.





So....a couple questions.
1. Can this tree withstand heavy pruning? The vines are so entangled that I'm not sure I can save all of it, especially the very top.
2. Should I try to continue training it against the frame?
3. What do I do about that bark looking kinda yucky? Is it repairable?