Cutting back an apple tree

Cliecost

I've got an old apple tree that's been infected for the past 2 years with Wooly aphids and flat leaf burrowing things.

I've found the right insecticide to kill them off.

This is a fully matured apple tree (30+ years), how far back can it be trimmed? Because the tree would need washing and insecticiding.

Also, what time of year is best to cut it back?

Funky_Bold_Ribena

It's called 'pruning' and you do it around the end of January.

You usually prune around 1/3 off each year if you are doing a big prune; however if it is diseased or infected, I've taken them down to a stump before and they just take longer to recover and grow back.

Cliecost

Funky_Bold_Ribena wrote: »

It's called 'pruning' and you do it around the end of January.

You usually prune around 1/3 off each year if you are doing a big prune; however if it is diseased or infected, I've taken them down to a stump before and they just take longer to recover and grow back.

That's what I was thinking of doing - cutting all the branches off except for the trunk and some of the thicker branches.

Hopefully it doesn't die.

Seanymph

I had people in to take out an elderberry tree that had completely deformed my apple tee - it ended up with a hole in the middle, and branches either side.

They said 'in five years you can cut off the side branches because it will have filled in the hole'.

I didn't believe them - year one and it has sprouted probably around forty branches going straight up where the hole is!

They are obviously amazingly resilient things.

safestored4

If you have no experience of pruning the best thing you can do is take the advice of the experts. Just type in 'how to prune an apple tree' and the site at the top of the list is that of The Royal Horticultural Society. This gives full, easy to follow instructions, including a section on how to renovate older trees, which seems to be what you want.

hathor

Not strictly on-topic - sorry - but we are buying an old house and have found that there's an apple tree in the garden. The house has been unoccupied for years and you can't get into the garden at the moment, so who knows what's out there? I only know it's an apple tree 'cos I can see windfalls on the ground in a photo taken from an upstairs window.
How do I find out what kind of apple it is? Don't really need to know the exact variety, I suppose, but "cooker or eater" would be good. Hoping to keep the tree...

Farway

hathor wrote: »

Not strictly on-topic - sorry - but we are buying an old house and have found that there's an apple tree in the garden. The house has been unoccupied for years and you can't get into the garden at the moment, so who knows what's out there? I only know it's an apple tree 'cos I can see windfalls on the ground in a photo taken from an upstairs window.
How do I find out what kind of apple it is? Don't really need to know the exact variety, I suppose, but "cooker or eater" would be good. Hoping to keep the tree...

An easy test is bite into one, if your mouth shrivels it is a cooker

But you can use eaters for cooking but they tend to hold their shape & not "fall" as a cooker does

hathor

That's one way of doing it, I guess! I'll just have to hope the beasties haven't eaten away too much of this year's fruit before I get to it. Seems a long time till next Autumn for the new crop, but no doubt the time will fly by.

Emma_whitnash

We had an old apple tree pruned last year. They did in two phases, January for first light prune then July for hard prune (thinning out the centre of it). To say we've been inundated by apples this year is an understatement so something worked!

RAS

Cliecost wrote: »

That's what I was thinking of doing - cutting all the branches off except for the trunk and some of the thicker branches.

Hopefully it doesn't die.

If you do that now, you will have a thicket by July.

Prune out deaddood and crossing branches now.

Take the centre out in July.

With respect to woolly aphid, they often overwinter in other plants and sometimes in small lumps in the tree itself (often near buds).

Remove any wood that has had the buds destroyed by aphids and any obvious lumps where they over winter.

This used to be controlled by spaying or painting the aphid with meths but I think this now breeches EU regulations. That was how I cleared up problems on one of my trees. Took two years to sort out completely.

Cliecost

RAS wrote: »

If you do that now, you will have a thicket by July.

Prune out deaddood and crossing branches now.

Take the centre out in July.

With respect to woolly aphid, they often overwinter in other plants and sometimes in small lumps in the tree itself (often near buds).

Remove any wood that has had the buds destroyed by aphids and any obvious lumps where they over winter.

This used to be controlled by spaying or painting the aphid with meths but I think this now breeches EU regulations. That was how I cleared up problems on one of my trees. Took two years to sort out completely.

What would class as deadwood crossing branches? And what do you mean by centre?