good morning everybody we're here at
stark brothers nursery in louisiana
missouri my name is terry and i am the
manager grower of the easy start program
and as of this month i'll be here 44
years so i'm a a lifer i think so uh
today we're going to give you a
demonstration of pruning this apple tree
this is a golden delicious apple tree it
was planted several years ago for a
dedication and unfortunately has been
left unattended
for several years so that was the first
mistake so we've got a little job ahead
of us here
don't be intimidated
when you're pruning everybody prunes a
little different
you're not going to kill the tree well
the main thing first is tools
make sure you have a good pair of
clippers and a and maybe a pair of
loppers depending on
the size of the tree if you're going to
need the loppers or not make sure
they're sharp so that you have it make a
nice clean cut
the first step that we're going to do is
we're going to
we're going to remove any sucker growth
that's at the base of the tree this is
going to take energy away from the top
of the tree and this is actually part of
the root stock so i'm cutting it
right at in the gr in the ground as much
as possible
so now moving up the tree this is an
apple tree uh so apple trees most
generally need a central leader as you
can see
um
we've got to make a decision on what is
the central leader but the first step
what we're going to do is we're going to
remove
any broken branches
any branches that are going inward
and then we'll start with that now when
you're making that cut
it's important to
not cut into the trunk of the tree or
the branch you need to cut at the collar
the collar is
right here it's just a little bit it's
no different than a
collar on your shirt there's a little
gap here and then it's then it's the
the trunk of the tree so you're gonna
cut on this side of the collar which i'm
not going to cut this branch at this
time
as i'm doing this i'm going to start
thinning the branches out too because
there's a lot of branches going on in
this tree and there's
a lot of unwanted branches we're going
to need in here want in here so i'm
cutting these off
at the collar
this branch here is growing in towards
the tree
that will need to come off
this branch is
growing up into a vertical position we
want them more horizontally
you might want to step back once in a
while and evaluate your tree uh
when you're done
it should be kind of a pyramid shape
since this is a little bit of an older
tree in most cases if this tree was like
the second year's growth you would look
at the fresh growth
this is a year's growth this is you can
see where it started you might take a
third of this off but this tree since
it's several years old i don't want to
go prune it too hard
i'll kind of watch it this year monitor
it how it's growing and then next year i
can kind of reevaluate the tree and
maybe
do a little bit clean up on the tree
i think i might need a ladder
no
since see that the this is the main stem
and that is the leader even though it is
a little bit of a size difference there
it'll it'll catch up i'm going to cut
this one pretty hard
here
i want to get a good clean cut
okay this one
you know it's it's growing vertically
and it's awfully tight
to the
the leader
uh so i'm going to make a nice cut
hopefully right
there
don't be afraid to reevaluate as much
you need to
what you see now is we're getting uh
we're opening that frame up we're
getting more sunlight in
more air circulation that'll keep
diseases from entering into the tree
also
and now i'm going to start heading back
uh some of these branches heading back
it means that you're going to take part
of the branching back some
and you want it at a
more of a 45 degree angle so there's a
bud i'm cutting it at an angle at about
45 degrees that way water doesn't puddle
uh on that cut
and disease won't settle in
as you can see this branch has uh been
damaged so we're gonna
cut that one back a little harder there
is a
a bud right here
so i'm going to take it back to this bud
right here
again at an angle
taking that off
there's too many branches going on right
here
i'm going to i think i'm going to
remove this one
okay so some of these branches are a
little tight so i might want to spread
them out a little bit with limb
spreaders so
they come in several different sizes
depending on how tight the crotch is
i might be utilizing a few of these
do it it's got a nice little triangle
there
a little angle
all you do is push that branch back and
set it against the trunk and the branch
at the angle that is that
is desired or you can make it less if
you want i'm going to push it out a
little bit
gonna push cut this one back a little
harder
so as you can see um i left the center
leader and it's more of a pure miracle
shape the branches get a little short
shorter on the top and they and they get
a little bit bigger at the bottom i'm
trying to keep them horizontally
so that way
they grow out and not in you get a lot
of air circulation some sunlight
penetrating it might seem a little
drastic but this tree was severely
neglected so we had to cut it back a
little bit harder so we will kind of
keep everybody
up to date on how this tree progresses
throughout the season