Pruning Tip Bearing Apple Trees

Most Apples are spur bearing; partial tips are like spurs

Most apples and pears are spur bearing: they are pruned “normally”, and are suitable for cordons and espaliers.
Partial tip-bearers have spurs too, and are pruned about the same way, a bit less often.

Few Apples are true tip bearers

• A small minority of apple varieties are true tip bearers, which are overall pruned a bit less in order not to remove those fruiting tips.
• Tip bearing apples are not well suited to cordons and espaliers, which require tidy trimming.
• Tip bearing apples produce fruit buds, usually single, at the ends of shoots that grew the year before.
• A productive tip bearing tree will look “hairier” than a spur bearing tree, especially when growth is apparent in late Spring.

Pruning Tip Bearers VS Spur Bearers: A Big Difference

• You don’t trim Tip Bearers all over: they make flowers & fruit on the tips of their fruiting laterals, which are concentrated more at the tips of branches, so you don’t want to cut them all off at once.
• You selectively remove old, fruited wood that is over 9 inches long, to make way for new shoots, which don’t get trimmed at all in their first year.
• You avoid removing the ends of branches, where most fruit is, unless you are pruning back that whole branch section to make way for new growth.

• You do trim Spur Bearers all over: they make flowers & fruit at the base of their short fruiting spurs, with only leaves shooting over them, which will shade the fruit.
• You cut the ends of branches at a convenient height or width.

‘Solen’ VS ‘Vertical-Axis’ Wire Trained Pruning Systems

You can’t grow a true tip bearing apple as a cordon, so there are a few variant pruning systems for wire training.

The Solen system is quick & easy, but unpopular with farmers because it delays fruiting.

1. Let the maiden tree grow for two years.
2. Select two strong branches at approx 120cm and 150cm high
3. Tie them onto their wires
4. Prune off everything else
5. Wait for two years for the branches to brush out and bear fruit!

The Vertical-Axis system requires more pruning time, but crops without interruption.