Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Tree Size
One of the first decisions you need to make is the size of trees that you will
grow. When I first started working in fruit culture, dwarf apples were just
becoming commercially popular and dwarf sweet cherries were still a dream.
Many orchards consisted of huge trees spaced far apart. Speaking from ex-
perience, pruning or harvesting a 20- to 30-foot-tall apple, pear, or sweet
cherry tree is a highly overrated pastime. Worse still, yields and fruit quality
are often poor, pest and disease management are difficult, and labor costs
are high for large trees. If you are growing fruit in a home landscape, one or
two large fruit trees can dominate your yard. By planting smaller trees, you
not only enjoy greater diversity in your fruit production but are usually re-
warded with better-quality fruit, higher usable yields, and less work.
The case for small trees.
Modern orchards typically consist of relatively
small trees that are sometimes supported on wires or poles. While an indi-
vidual small tree produces less fruit than a large one, you make up the differ-
ence in yield by planting many more small trees in a given space. Although
your initial establishment costs are greater because you need to buy more
trees and may have to build supports for them, smaller trees offer many ad-
vantages.
First, large trees are less efficient fruit producers than small trees. If you
examine a large, healthy fruit tree, you will find that most of the leaves and
fruit are borne on a thin shell on the outside of the tree, rather like the skin of
a balloon. According to research, few fruits form more than 18 to 24 inches
from the outer surface of a dense canopy. The interior portion of a large tree
is mostly branches and empty space that produce little fruit. The interior is
also highly shaded. What few fruits are found there are usually small and
poorly colored and may be misshapen. Much depends on the pruning and
training, of course. Trees that are pruned to open shapes are more fruitful in
the interior than are denser trees. Figure 3.1 shows the productive areas of
large and small trees.
