Caring for Apple Trees
MNLA Newsletter

Many home gardeners also would like to be home orchardists. Unfortunately, producing good-quality apples is difficult and often involves the handling, applying, and storing of more pesticides than any other food crop grown in Minnesota gardens. Pruning and training apple trees also requires ongoing attention, as does annual thinning, which must be done by hand. Many people find themselves disappointed in their new trees when they fail to bear after a few years in their yards, or when a neglected tree yields tiny, ugly, worm-infested apples, or when a tree’s limbs break under the weight of a crop.

All that said, growing apples at home can be very rewarding, and there will probably always be a market for apple trees. An apple tree in the home landscape should have a central leader established for maximum esthetic appeal, so if there are competing leaders, remove all but one. It’s often tempting to just trim back the competition, but in the end, the tree will end up better shaped if the competing leaders are removed right back to the main trunk, leaving just the single leader to dominate. An apple tree intended for maximum fruit quality and fruit size should have all central leaders removed, encouraging broad, open growth. Pruning is best done in winter, as fireblight, a potentially fatal bacterial disease, is easily spread by moist air to pruning wounds during the growing season.

People may want to buy trees with fruit on them. It’s much better for the tree to spend the first year or two in the new site establishing its root system and putting on top growth, rather than putting energy, water, and nutrients into developing fruit. In commercial orchards, trees allowed to fruit too early "runt out" and stay puny, never fulfilling their potential. The same thing can happen in the home garden.

You may have a choice about buying standard, dwarf, or semi-dwarf apple trees. Standard trees will grow to 30 or 40 feet tall, with a similar spread, taking up a lot of space in the yard. They will not fruit for 10 or more years. They will present an enormous management challenge for the home gardener, involving lots of ladder and tree climbing to thin and harvest fruit, as well as to prune and train the tree, and to spray for pests.

Semi-dwarf apple trees are probably the best choice for home gardeners. They may grow to 15 or 20 feet tall requiring some tree climbing and ladder work. They are somewhat more vigorous (and cold hardier) than dwarf trees and thus more forgiving of pruning errors, so they allow their owners to learn by doing. They shouldn’t come into bearing until about five years after planting, so their owners will not be tempted to let them fruit too early.

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