Shipped Apricot with bad pruning? What to do?

Hi, I have another issue with one of the trees I ordered. It's a Sugar Pearls white apricot, on a Myrobalan semi-dwarf root. The problem is that the trunk is like 4x bigger than the other trees so it seems much older, and there were already several branches on it that would have been the scaffold, but they were all cut back for the shipping.



Is it just me, or are these branches now useless and I have to chop the top off completely to actually grow proper scaffolds? It's not like I can just grow scaffolds in other directions from these short nubs, there is no room for them to properly grow in my opinion.

Also, is this acceptable for a purchased tree? It seems a bit odd to send such a big tree with scaffold branches pruned to a useless length.

I would be cutting the top off and regrowing scaffolds... but it seems a bit old and thick to be starting over with primary scaffolds...

What do you think about this tree? What should I do with it? Refund?

Thanks!

Looks like a pretty nice tree to me, although the buds pushing out already is a tad concerning. If it was my tree, I'd probably lop off the top just above where the white tag is and see how it grows.

John Wolfram wrote:Looks like a pretty nice tree to me, although the buds pushing out already is a tad concerning. If it was my tree, I'd probably lop off the top just above where the white tag is and see how it grows.

Thank you for confirming what I thought, sort of. I'm new to this, but it seemed the most logical.

Won't the new scaffolding be bad with the existing properly directed scaffolds creating new primary scaffolds off in odd directions? It wouldn't be better to have primary scaffolds starting off from the root trunk, not these very short branches?

Appreciate the response :) Peace.

Kris Nelson wrote:Won't the new scaffolding be bad with the existing properly directed scaffolds creating new primary scaffolds off in odd directions? It wouldn't be better to have primary scaffolds starting off from the root trunk, not these very short branches?

Sure it would be better if the branches hadn't been cut, but in a few years time the effects should be minimal.

John Wolfram wrote:Sure it would be better if the branches hadn't been cut, but in a few years time the effects should be minimal.

Alright, so I would rub off the buds growing vertically, and keep the ones growing more horizontally to get the proper primary scaffold angles, correct?

Kris Nelson wrote:

John Wolfram wrote:Sure it would be better if the branches hadn't been cut, but in a few years time the effects should be minimal.

Alright, so I would rub off the buds growing vertically, and keep the ones growing more horizontally to get the proper primary scaffold angles, correct?

I would probably just let everything grow for this year, and then select branches next year.