I have been ruminating over a recent exchange concerning tree size, density and longevity. A few thoughts not in any order or organization but as they occur to me. All orchards have a support system. If it is not posts, wires and stakes then it is large permanent limbs. If fruit is born on limbs that are no larger than your finger (some maintain pencil size) then you want a canopy of that size wood. The problem with permanent limbs is that they eventually get too large and contribute to trees that are too large. Those permanent limbs eventually become unproductive except for the very ends which you keep cutting back too. When you remove those large limbs then the resulting regrowth is overly vigorous. It seems to me that a system that has no permanent limbs will be more consistently productive of high quality fruit because you have new productive wood in the canopy all the time. It also seems to me that such a system is likely to have a longer useful productive life than a system with permanent limbs that has been planted too closely and eventually will have to be fought with to maintain and becomes overly vigorous and loses both productivity and fruit quality. The life of an orchard is more often determined by the economics of the value of the variety, productivity and efficiency of operation than by tree age or size. If you plant an orchard with the idea that it is permanent then at some point you will have an old orchard of varieties that are out of favor, of poor quality and inefficient to operate. There are few industries that are still selling the same product they were fifty years ago and producing it with the same fifty year old technology.
-- Art Kelly Kelly Orchards Acton, ME
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