The Prairie Spy

Alan “Lindy” Linda

I know some stuff about apple trees. Fifty years of stuff, to be exact. Just the last few days, people have been asking me: “What do I do with my apple trees, because….”

They’re three or four or, or, or years old, and have never been pruned.

They’ve never had apples, and they’re three or four or, or, or.

They look dead.

They’ve never been pruned.

Okay. So here goes. Let’s assume you chose the correct apple varieties, according to the University of Minnesota, or local growers, or, or, or. And if you’ve done that, good.

Let’s also assume that you protected them from little varmints that like the taste of young apple tree bark. You did this with metal window screen, or hardware cloth, or the wrap-around plastic spirals. But you did not do it with one-piece white plastic tree protectors. Because those are only for shade tree varieties, and will cold-sink freeze kill your apple trees.

This part is also pretty important:  You planted the tree in if not full sunshine, pretty close to it. Sunshine is important. It ties in importance with enough moisture. So far so good. 

Now about pruning, something that is almost uncommunicable by prose, but there are some basics. 

Almost every small branch that grows straight up vertically from a large limb should be removed. Almost.

Almost every branch that grows from the bottom of a limb should be removed. Almost.

Almost every branch that grows from the bottom of the main trunk down at the bottom should be removed. Almost.

The reason pruning is important is next.

First, let’s talk about how apple trees–all things that grow, actually–are really little counting machines. They count rain (moisture in general), they count sunshine, they count temperature, both above and below ground. They count temperature changes. And they do this well because every bit of root, every little branch, every little leaf not only counts but helps by somehow remembering those tallied numbers.

And? And that’s why sun and moisture are critical. Trees perform next year on how the counting went last year. Your tree(s) are not looking good this summer? Hmmmm.

And you didn’t prune? All those little branches you should have removed grow up and leaf out and block any sun inside that tree. Worse–moisture during rainy spells builds up inside that “house” of leaves, wind cannot get in there, and mildew and mold form.

An old saying: You should be able to throw your baseball cap through a correctly pruned tree. Yes, I know. You do that, they look ugly. But only for a while.

Finally. Here’s how an apple tree works. First the part above ground warms up, leafs out, maybe even blossoms.

Then and only then does the ground warm up enough for the roots to start feeding all that stuff that is already going on up there above ground.

“My apple tree died after it leafed out and blossomed.” Uh huh. You can take an apple tree now, while it’s cold, cut it off, throw it on the burn pile, and it will leaf out, even blossom maybe. That’s because there is a sequence.

First above ground. Then below ground. Something wrong below ground? Tree looks good, then dies. Confusing. 

I do not prune until I see green grass sprouting. Prune too soon? All those little counters will figure out how to defeat that pruning cut  by throwing energy at it and sending out three or four or more little branches right there. It doesn’t know you mean well; it may well think the wind broke it off, and it wants to compensate that loss.

So you wait until kind of the last moment to prune. That way, the “counting machines” do not have time to override and defeat your human attempts to help it survive.