During the first three years, the trees not only developed their permanent structure of twin branchless leaders, they also produced two crops.
The fruit were borne on short spurs on the leader, because development of fruiting units was delayed to promote extension growth of the leaders.
After the third year, the leaders had reached their maximum permissible height of 3.20 m, which is 80 percent of row width (4 m).
To optimize a sustainable production, a combination of young spurs and fruiting units is required. Fruiting units are short (100 to 300 mm) pieces of one, two and 3-year old wood which are created and renewed during the summer months.
Apricot trees are not pruned in winter because of the risk of bacterial canker infections.
This article deals with the development of fruiting units, and the methods are best illustrated in a series of pictures with detailed captions.
See this article and the images in Tree Fruit April 2021
