Our young trees have really grown this year. Eric, Trey and Henry have taken excellent care of them and may have set some sort of growth record in trees during this first year. Now that they have started to establish themselves - it's time to give them a little structure. They need to be pruned to know how we want them to grow for the best yield and most efficient maintenance.
First, Eric and Trey look at the trees to determine which cuts need to be made to give the tree the desired shape and also to leave the tree healthy, strong and ready to grow this spring and summer. The right cuts can help you predict how a tree will grow. Did you know you can actually train a tree to do what you want.
After looking and deciding - we cut.
Re-evaluate.
And admire our work.
Do you see how the trees look like slingshots or "Y's" This allows them two main branches for growth and production. The main branches grow into the meadow strip between the rows and there is not part of the tree that grows towards another tree in it's row. This allows us to plant more trees per acre than the previous style of pruning. More trees/acre (aka High Density Farming) mean that it takes less fertilizer, lime and time to maintain a higher number of trees than we could in the past when the trees grew farther apart. This helps keep the cost of production down and the orchard looking very neat and tidy.
Because - after all - it's about keeping the orchard neat and tidy.
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