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Two Years Old
Limb spreaders can aid in bringing about earlier fruit production, improved tree shape, strong crotch angles, and improved fruit color. Spreaders can be either short pieces of wood with sharpened nails driven into each end or sharpened metal rods. Always spread the tree before pruning, which consists of entirely removing undesirable upright limbs and reducing the length of new shoot growth by one-quarter. Limbs should not be spread below a 60-degree angle from the main trunk. Limbs spread wider tend to produce vigorous suckers along the top of the branch and might have reduced terminal growth. The spreaders should remain in place for 1 to 2 years until the branch "stiffens up."
Figure 4.6 is an illustration of what the tree might look like after a couple of years. The objective is to try to leave only four to six main scaffold branches spaced around the tree. A second set of branches above the first is then developed the following year. Always make sure that the ends of the scaffold branches are below the end of the central leader after they have been pruned back.
At maturity the overall appearance of the tree should be a pyramid with the largest and longest branches in the lowest and first set of scaffolds followed by 2 to 3 additional sets that are progressively smaller in diameter and shorter in length.
