Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
3 feet above the ground. Special wire clips that surround the trunk and clip
to the trellis wire are available from nursery supply companies. These clips
allow you to quickly and securely support the trees on the trellis wires and
are a marked improvement over tying.
For trees that are to be grown on poles or trellises, whether to install the
support posts and wires now or later depends on the training system and
size of the trees. In general, it is best to train the trees early. Straightening a
bent trunk or developing a new scaffold limb on an older trunk can be chal-
lenging. Within reason, the sooner you can get the trees trained, the quicker
the tree will produce and the fewer problems you will have correcting badly
trained trees.
If you are training the trees to posts, such as with the slender spindle sys-
posts at the same time. When the tree support posts are metal pipes or T
posts that will be driven into the ground, rather than buried, the posts can
be driven in after the trees are planted, taking care not to drive the posts
through the root balls.
First Year Care and Management
For most orchard crops, the critical steps following planting are to keep the
soil moist, control vegetation around the trees and bushes, and control pests
and diseases.
Depending on the crop and training system, you may also head back
newly planted trees to encourage scaffold limbs at a particular height and
may begin summer pinching on whips and feathered trees as you select and
develop scaffold limbs or fruiting wood. For slender spindle and axis sys-
tems, you will need to begin tying trunks and lateral branches to trellis wires
and poles. For all tree crops, use clothespins, weights, and/or spreader bars to
bend down branches and develop wide branch angles. The latter step, alone,
greatly adds to a tree's strength and health. These steps are discussed in de-
tail in
chapter 12.
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