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PLANTING AND PROTECTING NEW TREES

In most areas you can plant apples either in early spring or late fall, while the trees are dormant. Fall planting enables roots to become better established before new leaves start demanding water in spring, but in colder zones fall planting risks winter injury to the not-yet-settled trees. Plant them the day you get them, if possible.

Fill your planting holes only with what you just dug out of them. Do not add any nitrogen fertilizers—no chemical fertilizer mixes, fresh manures, blood meal, etc.—since they can burn young roots. Adding organic matter to the planting hole is not as helpful as improving the entire area with a good ground cover. In clay soils, organic amendments in the planting hole can actually be harmful, because roots and water will then tend to stay in the looser soil of the hole instead of penetrating the heavier native soil. Without deep roots, the trees are more susceptible to drought, and impeded water drainage beyond the planting hole can lead to root rot.

Set trees a few inches deeper than they grew in the nursery, to reduce root suckering. Keep the graft union of trees on dwarfing rootstocks an inch or two above the soil; if the union were buried, the variety could root and overcome the rootstock's dwarfing effect. Set interstem trees with the interstem piece half above and half below the soil. Set all trees so the curved part above the graft is facing into the direction of prevailing summer winds. After filling the hole, build a slight mound around the tree with additional soil and make a watering hole in this mound a few inches away from the tree's trunk. Water newly planted trees often.

Apple trees on poorly anchored, fully dwarfing rootstocks need to be tied to .sturdy stakes so the wind doesn't blow them over. A fence post or two-inch-thick, decayresistant wooden post, five feet tall, makes a good stake. Drive the post 18 inches into the ground, six to 12 inches away from the tree. Tie the tree loosely to the stake with soft material in a figure-eight loop, so you don't girdle the tree. Trees on standard or semidwarfing rootstocks don't need staking, and neither do interstem-dwarfed trees.

Protect tree trunks from winter sunscald, borer insects and rodents by wrapping white plastic tree guards around them, sinking the guards an inch into the soil. Remove these when the tree's branches and leaves have grown enough to shade the trunk. Another way to prevent sunscald and borer damage is to paint the trunk with white interior or exterior latex paint diluted half-and-half with water. A 14-inch-tall wire-mesh guard around each tree, sunk two inches into the ground, can also protect against rodents.

TRAINING AND PRUNING

Cut back the new trees immediately if planting in spring, but wait until early the following spring to prune trees set in the fall. Pruning adjusts the top to the reduced root system, which was pruned in transplanting, and avoids stressing roots. Pruning also stimulates buds to grow just below the cuts, helping the tree develop its best shape for fruiting.

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