Apple trees - some pruning advice needed

I have been learning my way pruning some apple trees in our garden. Previously pruning has been very haphazard; years were missed, it was done without much knowledge, and they were in a terrible shape. I'm on year three of a more informed pruning cycle and they are doing well. They have a much better shape, and a strong healthy framework.

The upshot is that they have been fruiting pretty well for us.

Yesterday I spent some time in the garden doing some winter pruning. Some of the trees are massively overcrowded with fruiting spurs, and I figure I need to thin them out. However I have no real sense of how many is too many, or what my final pruning objective is.

I have seen, in a quick google, that pruning each spur cluster back to 3-to-5 spurs will give larger better quality fruit. Does that sound about right?

How far apart should those spur clusters be from each other? In some places I can see a dozen spur clusters on a 2ft long branch.

I'm pretty sure this is one of those 'it depends' questions....I think I'd err on the side of having too many spurs, on the basis that you can thin the fruit out if necessary. It would probably depend on the size of the fruit and how heavily the tree tend to set. Sorry I can't be of more help.
I'm still learning myself (never stop!). I've got a 'new' orchard at home and the trees are so slow growing I don't prune them hardly at all. and use of a walled garden where the trees are ancient, neglected and diseased, needing a lot of Tender Loving Care I expect to do some severe remedial pruning in the next few months.

Having not seen the tree in person, and not even seen pictures, I can only give general advice, and personal experience.


I work on trees professionally and have pruned atleast a few hundred fruit trees in the PNW.

You can usually remove 1/3 of a tree in a year without hurting it in the long run.

Most trees seem to produce well after being pruned back. They seem to re-invigorate.

With Apple trees specifically, they often have a tendency to "sucker" in Spring, especially after pruning.

The best time to pruned to minimize succor seems to be towards the end of Summer as things begin to go dormant and heal over.

Spring pruning seems to cause heavy suckered.

Any branch or shoot that wants to grow in a directly upward direction is a "sucker", and we typically cut every single one, every other year.

They will cause the tree to grow tall and produce most of the yield  out of reach.

Branches that grow over and across the center of the tree or crowd center space can be pruned, and any Branches that touch or soon will touch.

Branches whose tips are lower than trunk height, will produce more heavily as a general rule/trend, and young shoots can be weighted, tied, or trained downward.

Sometimes you might want a taller apple tree and another level of branches and so choose to let a few suckered grow, and prune to shape with time.

While all these tips are useful, as well as making clean, lateral cuts, and leaving branch collars, there is something to be said for letting nature and the tree do their thing.


Sounds like you're doing great. Enjoy all the apples!

I really can't say much about spur clusters.