Spur and Tip-Bearing Varieties Fruits Organic

Most varieties of apple and pear are spur bearers, producing most of their fruit on short spurs, which form on older wood. A few varieties, such as Worcester Permian, are tip bearers, producing most of their fruit on the tips of new wood formed the previous season. Varieties such as Bramley and Discovery are partial tip bearers, producing fruits on both spurs and tips. When growing trees from a maiden whip, both tip and spur bearers are started in the same way, but are treated slightly differently from the third year onwards.

TREE FORMS

Commercially, many growers use centre-leader or open-centre (bush) tree forms for apple and pear production. However, a variety of other tree forms exist, including pyramid and spindlebush forms, or variations on these, suitable for trees on dwarfing rootstocks planted at high density. Those on vigorous rootstocks have traditionally been grown as half- standard or standard tree forms.

PRUNING

There are many excellent texts detailing the pruning of apples and pears, and more comprehensive instructions on the general aspects of pruning may be found elsewhere. For simplicity, the main principles of pruning open-centre (bush) and centre-leader tree forms are discussed below, as these systems of training suit most commercial situations for trees on semi-dwarfing rootstocks. They are ideal for organic growers since both methods of training allow good light penetration and airflow around the lives, which helps to discourage diseases such as scab. Such trees are also easy to manage, requiring minimal pruning after establishment.

Apples and pears may be pruned in the same manner for the tree forms outlined below, unless indicated otherwise. Pear trees are usually slower to come into cropping than apples, although, once established, pears can tolerate harder pruning and, unlike apples, will not respond to hard pruning with the production of unwanted suckers or water shoots. Pruning can be carried out at any time during the dormant period after leaf fall (from November to March), but is most easily done in late winter, when the difference between vegetative and fruiting buds is most obvious. Unwanted prunings may be raked up and burned (although a licence is needed from the Environment Agency to burn prunings on your own holding), or else they may be shredded or pulverized and returned to the crop row to provide nutrients, ensuring that diseased material has been removed completely.

These spurs may need thinning out as the branch becomes older. Only limited pruning is required for tip bearers and the majority of shoots formed the previous year, 23cm or less in length, can be left unprunedLonger shoots are spur-pruned (as above) to prevent crowding and to help stimulate the formation of more tip-bearing shoots. Tipping back the branch leaders by three or four buds will also help to promote the production of more tip-bearing laterals. Partial tip-bearing varieties require only light spur pruning.