Hermitage Farm‘s Bramley Apples

Here we are, five miles north of Hereford, in the middle of the organic Bramley apple harvest and the sad thing is that the bottom has dropped out of the Bramley apple market in the UK.

We are seeing Bramley apple trees being grubbed out, but what we need is a high profile celebrity chef to re-educate the British public about how to use Bramley cooking apples.

It has to be said though, that the French don’t even have a word for “cooking apples” there are many French varieties of apples and you can either eat them or cook with them. Or make cider with them of course!

Some advice about pruning Bramley Apple trees and grafting:

If you have a large Bramley apple tree, maybe up to 70 years old and it’s taking up a lot of space where you might prefer to have several other different varieties of apple trees growing, then you might want to consider grafting or top working the old Bramley tree after a severe prune but there are limitations to what can be done in such circumstances. For example it may seem a good idea to graft several different types of scions onto the same family tree or stock, but this can cause problems with differentiating growth rates of the various grafts, and also necessitate removing as many as possible of the original Bramley buds when they come through in spring, which is hardly practical on a large tree. A very large very old tree may present some challenges and you certainly
should leave ‘nurse branches’ but it is achievable, and if the tree is
lively you may be surprised how strongly the scions grow way.

Top working or grafting is not so difficult really, but the timing of the various prunes is actually quite crucial.

You need to cut the desired type of scion wood in late winter one season, then store it carefully, and do the grafting onto the old Bramley apple tree sometime between bud burst and blossom time. It’s well worth practicing first on some less valuable trees in order to make mistakes, learn, and then get the right cuts that work for your orchard.

Bramley Apple Tree

Restoring Old Apple Trees Video One

Restoring Old Apple Trees Video Two

Restoring Old Apple Trees Video Three

Restoring Old Apple Trees Video Four

Restoring Old Apple Trees Video Five

This latest one is all about summer pruning.

Summer pruning is a discretionary activity for orchard keepers, so you have to decide if it’s needed or not. Where a tree puts on a lot of new growth, then it’s worth thinning it out a bit but this will vary from season to season and from tree to tree. The best time is July or August, before the apples ripen to reduce apple scab  damage and increase the light levels.

Only the smaller manageable trees can be pruned in this way, not the giants.

This tree is just beginning a bud burst, with the optimal number of buds filling the available space for fruiting.

Planting a very small tree, a one year maiden. Large rootball.  Plant bare rooted trees in the winter from a local nursery.

Using the saw to remove low branches. Clearing away any rubbish, vines, young trees getting in the way. Take the big branches out first before using the secateurs. Remove crossed branches, anything that’s tangled up. leaving some new , healthy looking upright facing branches. Walk around the tree and look at it from different angles. Don’t take out more than a third of the wood, and don’t cut a bit off everything all round – pudding basin haircut.

What to do with a neglected old fruit tree? Do you want maximum fruit or a big tree to sit underneath?

Here’s one to restore. Is the tree vigourous and in the right place.

Pruning a neglected apple tree is not difficult. A few simple principles and a sharp saw will see it all right. the main thing is to use the saw to remove whole branch systems that are diseased, too low, too crowded or crossing, and mostly leave the rest of the tree alone-at least for the first year.

There is a very good section in the RHS book ‘The Fruit Garden Displayed’ on pruning neglected trees, but sadly it’s out of print.

Top working  or grafting over an apple tree which is sound, but not the right variety for example. This example is a Crimson King that has been grafted over to other varieties. A pencil of the chosen variety is cut in February and kept cool until around April when the tree is getting going. Saddle grafts and cleft graft techniques. Probably best not to let the graft fruit the first year, let the joint strengthen first. Will fruit heavily in only three years from being top grafted over.

Stephen Hayes of Fruitwise Heritage Apples prunes a mature Egremont Russet which made a lot of whippy new growth last year. This tutorial concentrates on using the secateurs to manage excessive whippy extension growth from the previous year, with an emphasis on balance and fruit bud management.

Wear gloves when using the sharp saw. Upward facing branch. Up against the collar. be careful when working in the middle of a tree. Removing branches that are growing in to the centre. Creating space by removing one out of each pair of crossing branches.

The traditional approach to pruning the bramley apple tree is slighly different, as it entails working to a three year cycle.

On the first year you would be pruning in the winter to reduce the height of the tree.

Then in the second year, again in winter, prune to reduce the spread of the branches.

In the third year you would prune throughg the centre of the apple tree in or to clear away overcrowding.

In each year in the summer you would also be generally thinning out or managing the new growth so the summer pruning reduces new growth, while winter pruning promotes new growth.

You can also hard prune right down to the ground if you really want to but this produces a huge shock to the tree, with maybe no fruit at all for a number of years afterwards.