Does anyone have any advice on using a pole saw to prune fruit trees?

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone here uses a battery pole saw to prune fruit trees?   I'm thinking of buying an Atlas string trimmer from harbor freight and I noticed that they carry a pole saw attachment that uses the same battery as the string trimmer.  

My father in law currently uses  pneumatic loppers to prune his apple trees, and they work great.  The only problem is that it takes a fairly large air compressor plus a generator to run the air compressor.  He also uses a fairly large and heavy trailer to haul the compressor/generator and pulls it with a large International farm tractor.   This setup seems very inefficient to me.  I was checking into a gas engine compressor eliminate the generator, but  gasoline air compressors seem to be pretty expensive.  I also considered an electric to gasoline engine compressor conversion as well,  but sort of lost traction on that project for some reason.

Anyways, I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts how well a battery pole saw  would work out?  

Would it be too rough of a cut that might potentially damage the tree?  I was mostly thinking of using it to cut suckers and other small branches less than 1.5 to 2 inches in diameter.  Not sure if this would work well for that or not.  I'm sure that it wouldn't do as clean of a job as loppers, but maybe it wouldn't matter?

I'd greatly appreciate any advice, opinions, or other comments.  I'd also appreciate an comments about battery pole saws that I didn't ask questions about.  I know so little about them that I hardly  know what to ask.

The battery that the pole saw would be using has a 4 amp hour rating at 40 volts.  I have no idea how much current the pole saw draws, so I'm not really sure how many hours it will cut.

Thank you all in advance for any advice.
Have a great day!
Tim

I have a Black and Decker with an 18V battery. I would guess that you might get 20 minutes of cutting with a new battery. The batteries become useless after the second year. I would suggest you get at least 2 batteries; one extra above the one that comes with it. Even with a new freshly charged battery the cuts take much longer than with a gas saw. As the battery wears down it still cuts but you don't get much cutting done because it's running slower while your still holding all that weight up at the end of that long lever.

The pole saw I have has a  protuberance sticking out right behind the back of the chain so that you can't get it into some places where there are multiple branches.

Keep in mind what trees you want to cut. An apple tree is close to as hard as an oak tree so if your cutting peaches and pears the saw will be much more efficient than cutting oak or apples.

If you only have a few trees and your young and handy I would suggest a manual pruning saw on a long collapsible pole. There are no obstructions except a 2 inch high blade and the pole. And you can get quick clean cuts close to the trunk. The saw will cut well as you're using your own power which is much greater than the battery saw. And replacement blades are cheaper than a chain.

Tim Mackson wrote:Anyways, I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts how well a battery pole saw  would work out?  

Would it be too rough of a cut that might potentially damage the tree?  I was mostly thinking of using it to cut suckers and other small branches less than 1.5 to 2 inches in diameter.  Not sure if this would work well for that or not.  I'm sure that it wouldn't do as clean of a job as loppers, but maybe it wouldn't matter?

Hey Tim. I'm also concerned about the relatively ragged cut left by a chain saw, even if it's sharp. I have always been told that a clean cut is important to fend off disease.

I'm not sure how many trees you need to prune. Years ago, I was given a Corona extendable pole saw that has a built-in pruner. It has served me well on various hardwood trees.

Thank you John and Douglas,

The comments from both of you make me think that the manual saw is the better route possibly.  I have a good saw that I've never tried with pruning and it just might be one of those things where the simple manual solution works out better than the automated one.  He does have a lot of apples but he's getting way behind.

The pneumatic loppers certainly would cut faster, but the setup and moving from tree to tree really slow things down.

I've always used my saw for cutting limbs that were in the way and I never really cared about the cleanness of the cut, but I know that it does make a nice clean cut regardless.  The only drawback is that it might cause the bark to pull on the uncut side, but I don't think in most cases it will.


Thank you both.
Tim

I would not suggest using a power saw, maybe a hand saw, but pruning is mostly done using knife. Topping or limb removal saw would be fine, dead wood removal saw would be fine. pruning , grafting, knifes.

I watched a video on the Atlas 10" 40volt pole saw. This one cuts much better than my saw. However the main difference I see is the battery. It's got over twice the voltage and by looking at it about 3 times the battery size. But you have to lift that big battery; maybe chest high as your cutting. The saw itself looks pretty much the same thing I have. 3 poles, even has the protuberance keeping the saw from getting into tight places. What's the deal with that protuberance? Is it to keep wood chips out of the chain pulley? Not enough guts to power thru scrap chips?

But when he cuts thru that 10 inch log it runs and sounds like my saw. He cut thru a 10 inch log in 2 minutes 5 seconds. Sounds like my pole saw cutting thru a 4 inch log. However my corded electric chain saw would cut thru that 10 inch log in what? maybe 10 seconds; at the end of 4 extension cords.. My pole saw when cutting sounds like it slows down often while cutting like this one did. In the video linked to above if you watch the chain you can see it slow till it almost stops.

The price: $210 for the Atlas with 1 battery and a charger. For $230 you can get a Troy Bilt gas pole saw. Or for $8.99 a pruner with no pole. I was recently shopping on-line for a pruning saw on a pole and remember seeing them for $40-$50 but can't find them now.

I used a corded pole saw to top two of my Asian Pears. I did it early in winter and the stubs dried out and have had no problems.

I'm not going to say it's the best pruning tool, but I use a battery powered sawsz-all..  Makes a cleaner cut than a chainsaw...

I've not used a polesaw, but I can comment on my battery powered chainsaw. I love it, and haven't had the issue with batteries dying after a year as mentioned above. I'm still using my original battery 4 years later, but we bought a second one so we can have two charged for longer jobs. I use mine on my fruit trees without issue, but always keep the saw sharp and take care to cut conservatively so as not to leave ragged edges.

Is it perfect; no. Is it far better than manual saws for the amount I do? Yes - absolutely.

It's a compromise on human labour/time versus a "perfect" job.

Paul Stockton wrote:I'm not going to say it's the best pruning tool, but I use a battery powered sawsz-all..  Makes a cleaner cut than a chainsaw...

I also use a sawzall/reciprocating saw extensively for pruning. Blades like the one in the photo make a nice clean cut.

Now I wonder if I could mount one to the old roof rake handle i have and still power it with the sawzall. Hmm.

I wonder how hard it would be to rig up an extension pole out of a hollow tube (like steel conduit) and have a driveshaft inside to run the blade? The only difference from the pole-mount chainsaw would be a reciprocating drive instead of a rotating one, so maybe one of those could be modified.

My old roof rake handle reaches two storeys. It's galvanized steel, but pretty light and flexible. I would need to reinforce the snap-in joint connectors with a self-tapping metal screw.

I would slip a slightly larger sleeve of poly pipe over the bottom portion so I could hold and control it while the steel handle was moving.

The concern is that a recip saw blade needs a "shoe" that pulls against the wood being cut. Not always needed for light cutting, but if the wood gets tough or the branch starts to  twist I could end up with the whole unit stranded in a binding cut, two storeys up.