Ich habe diesen alten Apfelbaum geerbt, der in einem ziemlich schlechten Zustand ist. Nachdem ich ein paar abgestorbene Äste weiter unten am Baum entfernt hatte, war klar, dass sie innen verfault waren, und ich denke, dass ein Großteil des restlichen Baums auch in diese Richtung geht. Gibt es eine Möglichkeit, es zu speichern? Kann ich es stark zurückschneiden und die Wassersprossen von der Basis wachsen lassen?
Von: gmcq2009
15 Comments
In all honesty I’ve seen apple trees in MUCH worse state than that which are still popping out fruit, and will do for years to come. It’s got holes, but I don’t think it’s a rotten as you think. Older orchard trees that have been let go in periods of abandonment, look like this, but are fine.
***Edit:*** To actually answer you question, rather than go in hard (which I don’t think will produce much from lower levels) Do you have the luxury of a couple of less aggressive trims over a few years, see how it take things?
Trim about a third of the vertical shoots this winter, and keep going every year till you are trimming them all by year three. Cut the shoots at the base right down to the ground, they are coming from the rootstock that the apple tree was grafted onto.
Looks like it’s suffered from some poor pruning
Honestly, get a qualified gardener out to prune it correctly over the next couple of months.
If the apple variety is very sweet/rare, consider grafting a couple of branches onto a new root stock. All trees get old and sick, and will eventually die. Apple trees (as most fruit trees do) don’t tend to live much past 40, see e.g. [https://urbantreefestival.org/news/old-apples](https://urbantreefestival.org/news/old-apples)
If the apples are just decorative, consider leaving the old hollow tree there as a wildlife feature.
Hey! As already mentioned this is the result of poor pruning: i guess the branches were cut too close to the stem and the branch ring which works like an immune system for the tree was cut. Now the tree is no longer able to fight off mold and bacteria in these spots.
The good news is: Apple trees are very tough.
My advice: get an expert to look at the „wounds“ (maybe you can support your tree with some locally applied fungizides) and dont do any further pruning if it is not necessary.
Having an old apple tree is really amazing- I hope it will be in your garden for many more years to come!
Good luck!
Edit: the shoots from the bottom are usually not the variety of the tree. They are shoots from the grafting base (not sure if this is the correct English term) which is probably a different variety or even fruit tree. Even IF this is also an apple tree it will take up to 20 years before it will have apples. Cut the shoots and enjoy your old (and at the top perfectly trimmed) tree!
You can prune that in one go this year. Try and decipher whether it fruits on the tips or spurs or both, to avoid losing fruit.
The rhs has a good guide but a couple of competent gardeners could tidy this up in less than day.
Don’t take too much old wood off in one go to prevent the tree producing lots of water shoots rather fruit buds.
Also have a look at feeding it, fruit trees really benefit from the right fertilisers, so have a look and see what’s best for that…..
That tree will fruit and survive for many years if not decades to come.
The dead wood on living trees is important habitat for insects and birds
Not an expert, but we’ve had great results pruning badly maintained apple trees using a 3 year plan, always pruning to downward facing nodes to encourage easily harvestable fruit.
Year 1: Aggressive prune (~1/3 of new growth)
Year 2: Less aggressive prune (1/4 of new growth
Year 3: Even less aggressive prune (only branches that are crossing other branches)
We’ve got a couple like this in our back garden, which was originally an orchard many, many years ago.
I look on them as a feature, being old and gnarled rather than brand-new trees.
Personally, I’d just prune out some of the top branches, i.e. thin it out a bit, but I’d keep the basic old tree and it’s shape.
Take out any shoots that grow around the base. If it’s anything like ours, they’ll be loads.
But, it’s a nice looking, old tree. And great for climbing on, apparently!
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0A8446E7E8D24B31&si=UvCxxUTjQKj81MqA
Good channel for tree advice
I had an apple tree that had been dug up and split before replanting. It was about a quarter of this tree and still produced the nicest apples each year. This one is going strong by comparison.
That tree is absolutely fine. You can see all the strong new growth at the end of the branches from last year. Just prune it properly, remove dead as and when you discover it as well as any crossing branches. Apples shouldn’t be too dense.
Generally I don’t see dead apples standing, it’s more live (and elderly) trees fall over. Keep the dead down, reduce wind sail effect and don’t worry too much.
I just pruned a tree that was in a similar state last winter. Water shoots all over the place. When it had leaves on it before it has leaf scorch due to lack of air flow. I pruned the water shoots aggressively and only left stuff that was hanging down, accessible to my reach from the ground. I didn’t know if it would bounce back but it did and produced a lot of fruit. I also kept one of the new shoots coming out of the ground as a potential “new” tree, whereby as the old one gradually becomes toast there will be a much younger new tree ready to replace it. We’ll see how that works out but so far it’s looking like a good contingency plan
Post to r/arborists! They know their trees like no other