Pruning Tip Bearing vs. Spur Bearing Apple Trees
Pruning apple trees is not simply a matter of removing branches and shortening new growth. One of the most important things to understand before you begin pruning is where your apple tree actually produces its fruit. Apple varieties can generally be described as spur-bearing and tip-bearing. These terms refer to where flower buds and eventually apples develop on the tree. Knowing the difference can dramatically change the way you approach pruning. If you prune a tip-bearing apple as though it were a spur-bearing variety, you can unintentionally remove a significant portion of the wood that would have produced next season’s crop.
Spur-Bearing Apple Trees
Most of the commonly grown apple varieties are spur-bearing, which produce much of their fruit on short, compact shoots called fruiting spurs. These develop along branches that are generally two or more years old. Rather than producing a long shoot, it remains short and develops plump flower buds, which can continue producing flowers and fruit for several years.
Because of this, pruning a spur-bearing apple generally involves preserving productive fruiting spurs while managing overcrowding, removing unhealthy wood, and controlling excessive vegetative growth.
When looking at a spur-bearing tree, you may notice clusters of these short shoots distributed along the main branches. Once you learn to recognize them, it becomes much easier to understand the fruiting structure of the tree.
Pruning Spur-Bearing Apple Trees
When pruning a spur-bearing apple, focus on maintaining a healthy framework that allows good light penetration and airflow while preserving productive fruiting wood. Prune out:
• Dead, damaged, or diseased wood • Crossing or rubbing branches • Branches growing inward toward the centre of the canopy • Excessively crowded growth • Strong upright shoots competing with the tree's main structure • Older, congested spur systems that may benefit from selective renewal
Common Spur-Bearing Apples
• Gala
• Fuji • Granny Smith • Golden Delicious • Red Delicious • Jonagold • Braeburn • Cox's Orange Pippin • Spartan
• Honeycrisp
Tip-Bearing Apple Trees
Tip-bearing apples produce much of their fruit at or near the tips of shoots that grew during the previous season. This means that the long shoots produced this year likely will contain the flower buds that produce next year’s apples, which becomes very important when deciding how to prune. A common approach to pruning fruit trees is to shorten long shoots, but on a tip-bearing apple, repeatedly shortening those shoots can remove the very buds you are hoping will produce fruit. Tip-bearing varieties therefore generally require a more selective approach to pruning. Rather than automatically shortening new shoots, consider whether those branches are well positioned and could become productive fruiting wood.
Pruning Tip-Bearing Apple Trees
Be particularly cautious about shortening one-year-old shoots and prioritize selective thinning cuts and structural pruning. Remove branches that are genuinely creating problems while preserving well-positioned and healthy young shoots that can carry fruit.
Rather than looking at a long shoot and automatically thinking, "That needs to be shortened," think: could it develop into productive fruiting wood? Does the terminal bud appear to be a flower bud? Is it well positioned? Have enough space? And look durable?
Common Tip Bearing Apples
• King
• Gravenstein
• Gladstone
Tips to Recognize Fruiting Wood
One of the best skills to develop when caring for apple trees is learning to distinguish between vegetative buds and flower buds.
Vegetative buds tend to be smaller, narrower, and held relatively close to the branch and produce leaves and shoots.
Flower buds are generally larger, rounder, and plumper, and contain the flowers that can eventually develop into apples.
On spur-bearing varieties, you will often find these larger buds on short fruiting spurs along established branches two or more years old.
On tip-bearing varieties, look carefully at the ends of one-year-old shoots. Those terminal buds may be carrying next season’s flowers.
