-17- 



USING W CLIPS TO TRAIN 



FRUIT 

 1 



TREES 



George M. Greene' 

 Associate Professor of Pomology 

 Pennsylvania State University 

 Fruit Research Laboratory, Biglerville, PA 



Most frui 

 with the use o 

 pins to spread 

 shoots of upri 

 vars. The use 

 help good crot 

 and will help 

 becoming trapp 

 leader and the 



t growers are familiar 

 f spring-type clothes 



young 2-4 inch long 

 ght growing apple culti 



of this technique will 

 ch angles to develop 

 prevent dead bark from 

 ed between the central 



lateral scaffold limbs 



Unfortunately many upright grow- 

 ing cultivars need additional branch 

 spreading in years 3 through perhaps 

 6. Most fruit growers are familiar 

 with the use of wooden spreaders 

 (with nails in the ends) to spread 

 laterals away from the central leader 

 into a more horizontal position. This 

 spreading tends to reduce the vigor 

 and increase the fruitfulness of the 

 spread branch. In addition, if 

 lateral branching can be encouraged 

 on the spread scaffold limbs, trees 

 will tend to be more productive since 

 more sunlight can be intercepted by 

 the enlarged tree canopy. The author 

 saw VI clips being used in England in 

 1979 to spread branches but no source 

 of the clips in the U.S. was known. 

 However, hop growers in Washington use 

 this style of clip to help construct 

 the string trellises to support hop 



1 



Pennsylvania Extension Hort Series II: 

 permission of the author. 



140, 1983. Reprinted by 



