- 5 - 



Early training of young trees to prevent development o£ vigor- 

 ous upright growth is important as a means of encouraging early 

 fruiting. Spring-type clothespins can be attached to the leader 

 above lateral shoots to force the laterals to grow more horizon- 

 tally. (The snap portion of the clothespin is attached to the 

 trunk when new lateral branches are 3 to 5 inches in length.) The 

 clothespins are left in place 3 to 4 weeks. An apple picking bag 

 is an excellent container for carrying clothespins when you place 

 them in the trees or remove them later in the season. Round tooth- 

 picks can also be used on succulent lateral shoots for the same 

 purpose. They are less expensive than clothespins but take more 

 time to position in the trees. Either technique promotes develop- 

 ment of wide-angle scaffold branches. 



Many trees require branch spreading the second season. Wire 

 spreaders 6 to 8 inches in length and cut with a sharp point on 

 each end work well on upright growing branches in the second sea- 

 son. If additional spreading is required in subsequent years, 

 wooden spreaders should be used. Orchardists use either wooden 

 spreaders with nails inserted in each end of the spreader or wooden 

 slats with V cuts in each end. Scrap lumber, sawed into varying 

 lengths with deep V cuts in each end, work satisfactorily. Wooden 

 spreaders with shallow V cuts are difficult to anchor in the tree 

 and tend to slip along the scaffold and the leader. 



Delicious is not the only variety that requires this detailed 

 training. Paulared, a popular and heavily-planted summer variety, 

 requires scaffold spreading over several years. Early spreading 

 is particularly beneficial with this variety as established scaf- 

 folds split readily at the point of attachment to the leader during 

 spreading in subsequent seasons with wooden spreaders. 



Our experience with Paulared indicates that it is a rather_ 

 vigorous variety and trees propagated on MM 106 tend to make fairly 

 large trees. We also note a tendency towards biennial bearing. 

 Fortunately, chemical thinning seems to overcome this difficulty. 

 An application of 50 ppm NAD at petal fall or 7.5 ppm of NAA about 

 10 days after bloom has provided acceptable chemical thinning of 

 young Paulared trees. 



When planting trees on the less vigorous rootstocks (M.9 and 

 M.26), we usually head the trees at 24 to 30 inches to encourage 

 scaffold formation at the desired heighth on the trunk. Orchard- 

 ists heading these trees at 30 to 36 inches often fail to obtain 

 scaffold development within 2 feet of the soil surface and have 

 "top-heavy" trees. Removal of the shoots just beneath the apical 

 bud is an effective method of preventing formation of vigorous com- 

 peting scaffolds. Establishment of such vigorous scaffolds makes 

 it very difficult to maintain small tree stature. 



Growers observe that leaving more than the usual number of 

 scaffolds on Starkrimson Delicious results in more consistant an- 

 nual production. 



