Roasted
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Multi graft apple trees?

Just looking for tips on pruning multi graft apple trees. 2 of 5 grafts seem to be dominating My tree, with a third smallish branch doing ok. 2 of the 3 grafts have barely grown since I planted the tree 4 years ago... it bloomed for the first time this year.

JONA
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First Roasted have you any ideas of varieties?
It's so easy for one or two to become the completely dominant and to lose the rest in time completely.
Could you get a picture or two from different angles.

Roasted
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Main two are liberty and honey, crisp. 3rd is fugi, and the other two are gravenstein and empire... photos to come

Roasted
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That fence is to keep jack rabbits out, lost my first apple tree to them in about 10 hours after I planted it.
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Roasted
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Hard to tell in the photos, tree is about 7 feet tall.

JONA
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Most of those are fairly even in their growth rates Roasted,, with the exception of the Fuji. This is a triploid and as a result is inclined to be more vigorous than the others. I know Liberty is also classed as triploid, but for some reason it is not prone to strong growth as most of its type are,
So try to keep them all around the same as far as growth is concerned ....this may mean that some will require tying down to slow them down or removing strong growth from some of them at pruning time so leaving weaker growth behind.
The very weak grafts may never catch up....but to give them a chance..don't let them carry blossom or crop for a couple of years and tip all their growing points to try to stimulate action in the winter pruning.

Roasted
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Thanks

tomc
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Roasted, why stop there with your grafts?

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Gary350
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Be sure to keep the grafts marks for ever, you don't want to accidently prune one off. Often one or more grafts will die.

I worked in an apple orchard 50 years ago. The apple orchard did not prune a tree for 5 years then only shape it up slightly for a few more years. You want the tree to grow a good root system for 5 to 8 years before you prune it.

You have a small tree so it needs small fertilizer. When it grows larger it needs larger fertilizer. The roots that you can not see are as large as the tree you see. I would give the tree 1 tablespoon of high nitrogen urea and 1 tablespoon of 15-15-15 one day every week. I use to fertilize my tree every sunday after church. Sprinkle the fertilizer in a 2 foot radius from the tree then water it. When tree is 15 ft tall sprinkle 1/2 cup of each fertilizer in a 10 ft radius around the tree 1 time every week.

The biggest mistake most people make is not pruning their tree enough. You want the root system to be 2 times larger than the tree. When the tree is 10 feet tall start pruning it. You want several big limbs to grow horizontal. Not many limbs growing vertical. Cut the horizontal limbs short so they are able to hold the weight of many apples without breaking the limb off.

Tree much have full sun all day. If your house, garage, another tree, shades the apple tree it will make apples but they will never get ripe.

JONA
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Gary350 wrote:Be sure to keep the grafts marks for ever, you don't want to accidently prune one off. Often one or more grafts will die.

I worked in an apple orchard 50 years ago. The apple orchard did not prune a tree for 5 years then only shape it up slightly for a few more years. You want the tree to grow a good root system for 5 to 8 years before you prune it.

You have a small tree so it needs small fertilizer. When it grows larger it needs larger fertilizer. The roots that you can not see are as large as the tree you see. I would give the tree 1 tablespoon of high nitrogen urea and 1 tablespoon of 15-15-15 one day every week. I use to fertilize my tree every sunday after church. Sprinkle the fertilizer in a 2 foot radius from the tree then water it. When tree is 15 ft tall sprinkle 1/2 cup of each fertilizer in a 10 ft radius around the tree 1 time every week.

The biggest mistake most people make is not pruning their tree enough. You want the root system to be 2 times larger than the tree. When the tree is 10 feet tall start pruning it. You want several big limbs to grow horizontal. Not many limbs growing vertical. Cut the horizontal limbs short so they are able to hold the weight of many apples without breaking the limb off.

Tree much have full sun all day. If your house, garage, another tree, shades the apple tree it will make apples but they will never get ripe.
Hey Gary.....50 years ago most commercial orchards were on type 2 stocks and were planted at 15 X.15 spacing and allowed to grow to large ladder picking height. ( can't send a picker up a ladder now in case he/ she falls off)
Modern stocks need controlling quickly if you want to keep them down to ground harvesting. So growers prune and tie their trees from day one now so that they get good shape and get Into cropping by year two, and heavy cropping by year Five at the latest.



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