Fruits and Nuts: narrow branch angles in young fruit trees, 0 by kmom246

kmom246 wrote:
This is my first year growing fruit trees. I bought two bare root apple treesfrom stark bros (royal gala and september wonder fuji) this spring, and they are doing well. I am concerned, however, that many of the little branches are at narrow angles - I have read that closer to 90 degrees is better and, indeed, the few branches that the apples came with are all at just about 90 degrees. My little branches are about 2 inches long, about 3/8 inches in diameter and still very soft and pliable. They are not yet "woody", but they are not quite "herbaceous" anymore, either. Should I be 'training' them at this point so they will 'open up' more? If so, how would I go about doing that? We have very gusty winds here from time to time (50 MPH), and I will need to take that into consideration with whatever I do.

I am having a similar issue with my hardired nectarine, although the branches on it are about 4 inches long, less than 3/8 in diameter, are definately "herbaceous" and seem more suseptable to gusty wind movement.

My little peach suffered a wound part way up it's trunk and nothing grows above that spot. In fact, when it was wounded it appeared that it was going to die. Little buds on it all shriveled up. I kept watering and feeding it, though, and miraculously, it sprouted new buds. It looks like the one branch that has sprouted from below the wound is trying to take over as a new main leader. All the branches are coming off of that one and also have narrow angles. Like the nectarine, the branches are very slender and tender, not in the least bit woody looking. Should I "bind" the new main branch to the old one? Should I snip off the old one above the wound? Or ???

Sorry to have multiple questions in one post, but since they were similar, I thought I'd post them all together. Any advise or ideas are greatly welcomed, thank you!

This is one of the apples.