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I have been pruning for over two weeks now and have almost finished the orchard. A lot of the trees were planting to close together, and there are not many well established central leaders. Central leaders are the main branch that normally is reaching straight towards the sun. It helps to have a central leader to create optimum light infiltration during the growing season. I have realized that in order to prune apples successfully you really need the same person pruning the trees each year in order to have a true understand of where each branch is going and why.
That being said its been really interesting observing every tree and trying to work to restore these semi-leaning confused trees. I made a few to many big cuts on a few trees that ended up leaving to little second year buds, meaning that there will be little apples on those few trees. I did so because I was so caught up in the concept of restoring for future benefits. this is a commercial operation and not just my play ground for changing the shapes of the trees as a form of surgery. There needs to be a balance of pace, intuitiveness, and calm. I need to work hard and also think wisely about each cut, but I cannot think about it for long at all, WHEN IN DOUBT CUT!
Once the apple trees are pruned, I will be moving on to the blueberries and then last but not least the grape vines. We do not prune these in this order for no good reason. Apples need to be pruned first because the will start leaving dormancy the earliest, then blueberries, then grape vines. I like it as a systematic approach as well because it takes some of the anxiety away from having to do it all at once.
the winery is operating and in bottling mode, I will be bottling with larry & sue in the coming week.
