Fruit tree forms

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A test site with several fruit tree forms located at Gaasbeek Castle Fruit tree forms at Gaasbeek.JPG
A test site with several fruit tree forms located at Gaasbeek Castle

Fruit trees are grown in a variety of shapes, sometimes to please the eye but mainly to encourage fruit production. The form or shape of fruit trees can be manipulated by pruning and training. Shaping and promoting a particular tree form is done to establish the plant in a particular situation under certain environmental conditions, to increase fruit yield, and to enhance fruit quality. For example, pruning a tree to a pyramid shape enables trees to be planted closer together.[ citation needed ] An open bowl or cup form helps sunlight penetrate the canopy, thus encouraging a high fruit yield whilst keeping the tree short and accessible for harvesting.[ citation needed ] Other shapes such as cordons, espaliers and fans offer opportunities for growing trees two dimensionally against walls or fences, or they can be trained to function as barriers.

Contents

Forms

Fruittreeforms.png

Some of the following fruit tree forms require training by tying the branches to the required form. Most require pruning to retain the desired structure. However, not all types of fruit tree are suitable for all forms; apples and pears do well as cordons and espaliers, for example, whereas cherries are more suited to the fan form.

Bush

An open-centred crown on a short trunk of less than 1 metre (3 ft 3 in). This is a traditional and popular form for apple trees. Bush trees are easy to maintain and bear fruit at a young age. Final height is between 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) and 5.5 metres (18 ft), depending on which rootstock is used. [1]

Standard

Larger than the bush form, with trunks of 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) or more. Standard trees can reach a total height of 8 metres (26 ft). They eventually produce high yields but, being large trees, are not easy to maintain. [1]

Pyramid

Similar to the bush form, although the main leader shoot is allowed to maintain its dominance, resulting in a pyramidal shape.

Spindlebush

A variant of the pyramid form in which the lateral branches are tied down to a horizontal position. Designed for dense orchards by Otto Schmitz-Hübsch and Heinrichs in Germany in 1936, this is currently the most popular training system for dwarf apple and pear trees. [2]

Cordon

Single-stemmed trees planted at an angle (usually 45°), with fruiting spurs encouraged to form along the stem. Any side branches are removed by pruning. Cordons take less space and crop earlier than most other forms, so more varieties can be grown in a given space, but yields are smaller per tree. [3] A special cordon set-up is the Bouché-Thomas system.

Espalier

A central vertical trunk with three or four horizontal branches on each side. A special espalier in this group is the LePage-system.

Fan

A short central trunk with several radiating branches growing from the crown.

Step-over espalier

Espaliers with just one tier of horizontal branches 30 cm (12 in) from the ground. These make a novel and productive border for a vegetable plot.

A study on orchard mango trees in Nelspruit, South Africa, compared open vase, closed vase, central leader, palmette and standard pruning systems and recommended a modified pyramid, somewhere between a central leader and a closed vase system, for high-density mango orchards. The study also evaluated both post-fruit-set and post-harvest pruning, indicating that late mango cultivars benefit from pruning while bearing in late fall, while early cultivars may be best pruned immediately after harvest. [4]

Yield and spacing

Apples and pearsYieldSpacing
ApplesPearsIn rowsRows apart
Bush25–50 kg20–45 kg4–5 m4–5 m
Dwarf bush15–25 kg10–20 kg2.5–5 m2.5–5 m
Dwarf pyramid5–7 kg3–5 kg1.5–2 m2 m
Espalier (two tier)10–12 kg7–10 kg3–6 m2 m
Fan5–15 kg5–15 kg4–5 m-
Single cordon2–4 kg2–3 kg0.5–1 m2 m
Standard50–200 kg40–100 kg6–10 m6–10 m
Other tree fruitsYieldSpacing
In rowsRows apart
Bush (sour cherry)15–20 kg4–5 m4–5 m
Bush (plum and peach)15–30 kg4–5 m4–5 m
Bush, standard (sweet cherry)15–50 kg5–12 m5–12 m
Fan (all stone fruits)7–15 kg4–5 m-
Fan (sweet cherry)6–15 kg5–7.5 m-
Pyramid (plum)15–25 kg3–4 m3–4 m
Standard (plum, peach and apricot)15–50 kg5–7.5 m5–7.5 m

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See also

Related Research Articles

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A shrub is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple stems and shorter height, less than 6–10 m (20–33 ft) tall. Small shrubs, less than 2 m (6.6 ft) tall are sometimes termed as subshrubs. Many botanical groups have species that are shrubs, and others that are trees and herbaceous plants instead.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fruit tree propagation</span> Usually carried out vegetatively by grafting or budding a desired variety onto a suitable rootstock

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fruit tree pruning</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fruit tree</span> Tree which bears fruit

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pruning</span> Selective removal of parts of a plant

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Espalier</span> Pruning/tying branches to flat structure

Espalier is the horticultural and ancient agricultural practice of controlling woody plant growth for the production of fruit, by pruning and tying branches to a frame. Plants are frequently shaped in formal patterns, flat against a structure such as a wall, fence, or trellis, and also plants which have been shaped in this way.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tamarillo</span> Species of plant

The tamarillo is a small tree or shrub in the flowering plant family Solanaceae. It is best known as the species that bears the tamarillo, an egg-shaped edible fruit. It is also known as the tree tomato, tomate de árbol, tomate andino, tomate serrano, blood fruit, tomate de yuca, tomate de españa, sachatomate, berenjena, chilto and tamamoro in South America, tyamtar, rambheda or rukh tamatar in Nepal, and terong Belanda in Indonesia. It is popular globally, especially in Peru, Colombia, New Zealand, Ecuador, Nepal, Rwanda, Burundi, Australia, Bhutan and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Girdling</span> Removal of the bark from around the entire circumference

Girdling, also called ring-barking, is the complete removal of the bark from around the entire circumference of either a branch or trunk of a woody plant. Girdling results in the death of the area above the girdle over time. A branch completely girdled will fail and when the main trunk of a tree is girdled, the entire tree will die, if it cannot regrow from above to bridge the wound. Human practices of girdling include forestry, horticulture, and vandalism. Foresters use the practice of girdling to thin forests. Animals such as rodents will girdle trees by feeding on outer bark, often during winter under snow. Girdling can also be caused by herbivorous mammals feeding on plant bark and by birds and insects, both of which can effectively girdle a tree by boring rows of adjacent holes.

<i>Morus rubra</i> Species of tree

Morus rubra, commonly known as the red mulberry, is a species of mulberry native to eastern and central North America. It is found from Ontario, Minnesota, and Vermont south to southern Florida, and west as far as southeastern South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and central Texas. There have been reports of isolated populations in New Mexico, Idaho, and British Columbia.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ramification (botany)</span>

In botany, ramification is the divergence of the stem and limbs of a plant into smaller ones, i.e., trunk into branches, branches into increasingly smaller branches, and so on. Gardeners stimulate the process of ramification through pruning, thereby making trees, shrubs, and other plants bushier and denser.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grafting</span> Horticultural technique of joining plant tissues to grow together

Grafting or graftage is a horticultural technique whereby tissues of plants are joined so as to continue their growth together. The upper part of the combined plant is called the scion while the lower part is called the rootstock. The success of this joining requires that the vascular tissues grow together. The natural equivalent of this process is inosculation. The technique is most commonly used in asexual propagation of commercially grown plants for the horticultural and agricultural trades. The scion is typically joined to the rootstock at the soil line; however, top work grafting may occur far above this line, leaving an understock consisting of the lower part of the trunk and the root system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pleaching</span> Interwoven branches to form a hedge, fence or lattice

Pleaching or plashing is a technique of interweaving living and dead branches through a hedge creating a fence, hedge or lattices. Trees are planted in lines, and the branches are woven together to strengthen and fill any weak spots until the hedge thickens. Branches in close contact may grow together, due to a natural phenomenon called inosculation, a natural graft. Pleach also means weaving of thin, whippy stems of trees to form a basketry effect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canopy (grape)</span> Grapevine structure above ground

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This glossary of viticultural terms list some of terms and definitions involved in growing grapes for use in winemaking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Water sprout</span>

Water sprouts or water shoots are shoots that arise from the trunk of a tree or from branches that are several years old, from latent buds. The latent buds might be visible on the bark of the tree, or submerged under the bark as epicormic buds. They are sometimes called suckers, although that term is more correctly applied to shoots that arise from below ground, from the roots, and a distance from the trunk. Vigorous upright water sprouts often develop in response to damage or pruning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vine training</span> Horticultural technique

The use of vine training systems in viticulture is aimed primarily to assist in canopy management with finding the balance in enough foliage to facilitate photosynthesis without excessive shading that could impede grape ripening or promote grape diseases. Additional benefits of utilizing particular training systems could be to control potential yields and to facilitate mechanization of certain vineyard tasks such as pruning, irrigation, applying pesticide or fertilizing sprays as well as harvesting the grapes.

Full Grown is a UK company that grows trees into chairs, sculptures, lamps, mirror frames and tables. It was co-founded by Gavin Munro in 2005.

There are various methods of tree shaping. There are strengths and weaknesses to each method as well commendable tree species for each process. Some of these processes are still experimental, whereas others are still in the research stage. These methods use a variety of horticultural and arboricultural techniques to achieve an intended design. Chairs, tables, living spaces and art may be shaped from growing trees. Some techniques used are unique to a particular practice, whereas other techniques are common to all, though the implementation may be for different reasons. These methods usually start with an idea of the intended outcome. Some practitioners start with detailed drawings or designs. Other artists start with what the tree already has. Each method has various levels of involvement from the tree shaper.

References

  1. 1 2 Hessayon, Dr D. G., The Fruit Expert, Transworld Publishers Ltd, 1997, p10
  2. "TRENDS IN FRUIT TREE TRAINING AND PRUNING SYSTEMS IN EUROPE". www.actahort.org.
  3. "Main fruit tree forms". Archived from the original on 2008-08-08. Retrieved 2008-07-13.
  4. Stassen, P. J. C.; Grovè, H. G.; Davie, S. J. (2001) [1999], "Tree shaping strategies for higher density mango orchards" (PDF), Journal of Applied Horticulture, Society for Advancement of Horticulture, 1 (1): 1–4

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