Establish a branchless pear tree with two leaders: Below are nine steps for the first two years to establish a branchless pear tree with two leaders (bi-axis), either as an upright 2D wall or on Open Tatura.
To control apical dominance: (cont from last issue)
Step 8
Pinch several new shoots immediately below the no. 4 shoot, if they are too vigorous and become too dominant.
Step 9
Score the leaders 25 mm up from where they start on the trunk (stem).
The results
About four months after bud swell, the results of these 9 steps show a calm head with the development of short proleptic shoots that will become fruiting units from the bottom up—contrary to what the pear tree wants to do.
You are well on the way to having uniformity in your orchard, which makes management of the trees easy, and lead to optimum and sustainable yields of good fruit size and quality.
See this article and images in Tree Fruit August 2021
