narrow branch angles in young fruit trees

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.

This is the other apple.

This is the nectarine.

This is the peach. You can kind of see the wound at the base. It extends nearly completely around the whole branch.

Thanks so much!

With the apple trees, if the branches are soft enough, you can force them to grow straight by using clothespins.

Attached is a pic of my William's Pride with branches being trained. They've held up to strong gust of winds, so you shouldn't have a problem.

There are a number of ways to 'spread' branch angles - you can purchase 'limb-spreaders' from an orchard supply store, or make your own from lightweight 1X1" lumber, or even dowel rods of appropriate length with a nail driven into each end, the head cut off, and the ends sharpened so that they'll stick(just enough to hold the dowel in place) into the trunk and the limb being spread.
Or, you can hang soda cans on the limbs and add sand or water until you get sufficient weight to pull the limb down to the desired angle.

amandaemily,

That looks like a nice pin job...also I have a blue 96 Olds about like the one in the picture.




I like to have a set of 3 or 4 limbs starting at about 3 or 4 feet and then about 3 more up a little higher and then keep the top center open for good air and light and a manageable height.

If you want to force an apple tree to start branching at a certain height, just lop off the top at that point.

It'll start to branch at that point and you can choose another upright branch as the new leader for the next whorl of branches the following spring.

Do the pruning in the early spring at bud break though, right now is a little too late :-)

The tree in that picture was around 4.5' tall before I chopped it down to 3' for the first whorl and you can see how much branching it has done just this season (the tree is on M27 rootstock so it will top out at around 6' when I am done with it)

This message was edited Jul 19, 2006 11:25 PM

Thanks, everyone! Tree Training starts this weekend!

It is working well, thank you!