Before proceeding with the description of cutting fruit trees and shrubs, it is worth recalling the names that have been adopted for a long time.
The cultivated noble varieties of fruit trees are propagated by grafting or budding. A plant, on which cultivars are grafted or inoculated, we call the washer. The rootstock is the root system of the tree and the base of the trunk, called the root collar, and if the vaccination is made several centimeters above the ground, it is also part of the trunk.
The structure of the fruit tree
The cultivars of fruit trees can be grafted and budded on rootstocks of different growth strength. Depending on the rootstock used, we can distinguish dwarf trees, semi-dwarf, vigorously and very vigorously growing. The growth force of trees should not be confused with the height of the trunk. The height of the trunk does not depend on the rootstock, and the way the tree is formed in the nursery and in the orchard. Depending on the height of the trunk, we divide the trees into bushy ones, discover us, half-foams, foaming and high-growth trees. Currently, Polish nurseries produce only low-growing trees (trunk from 40-60 cm) and bushy (stock to 30 Cm). Such trees are planted in commercial orchards. In old orchards you can still find half-stem trees, pienne, and along the roads there are tall trees, whose trunk has over 160 cm in height. Many farmers, planting trees in farmyards, cut down the lower branches, to obtain taller trees from low-growing trees. Such conduct is justified in these cases, when people or livestock pass under the trees. If, on the other hand, the trees are planted in a separate home garden or on a working plot, they should have a low-foaming form.
The height of the tree trunk has a great influence on its fruiting. The lower the trunk, the faster the tree begins to bear fruit after planting and the higher the yield is. If the trunk is low, these are the nutrients taken up by the roots and those produced in the leaves are used up in the formation of the limbs, fruit-bearing branches and twigs. If, on the other hand, the trunk is tall, a significant percentage of the nutrients are used to build the trunk. The crown grows slower then, fruiting is later and sparse.
In our national nurseries, budding and grafting are generally done next to the ground, and therefore the trunk is made of a cultivar. This rule is not followed when grafting varieties that are very sensitive to frost. To avoid freezing of the trunk, first the frost-resistant variety is inoculated on a rootstock, ak called guiding, and forms a tree trunk out of it, and sometimes even the roots of the branches, and only on them the cultivar is grafted. These treatments are performed in the nursery and in the orchard.
Recently, more and more apple trees with the so-called stunting insert are being planted in our orchards. They consist of three components. On a strongly growing rootstock, which is usually a seedling of the Antonówka variety, a scion taken from a dwarf rootstock is grafted close to the ground, and only a cultivated variety on this scion. In this case, the trunk consists partly of a dwarf rootstock, and partly from a cultivar. The resulting tree is dwarf.
A tree trunk forks at a certain height, creating branches. Some trees already have a strong central limb by nature, which forms an extension of the trunk. This branch is called a guide. If the tree is not prone to creating a guide, we try to form it in the orchard by appropriate procedures. Hence, most of the trees in commercial orchards have crowns with a clearly marked guide. Crowns without a guide are often found in untreated trees.
The developing young tree shows what is known as apex dominance, which manifests itself in this, that the apical buds on the shoot create stronger growths and grow more vertically than the underlying side buds. Hence, the shoots formed from the tip buds are seated at a sharp angle in relation to the guide, and the lower shoots at a more or less wide angle.