Pruning a young apple tree

Evening
I wonder of anybody could give me some advice on best way to prune this apple tree , when i purchased the tree some of the branches were almost bent and twisted , see pics , also when i had a few apples on the branches were sagged alot , i think it needs a good pruning during winter to strengthen the branches . Any help ?
Thanks in advance

 

Oh my, yes you need to shorten those long whippy growths, but before you do consider putting in more support and training it into an espalier, or a fan. That said I would remove some of the lower branches completely, and shorten the others by half at least even if tied in to a support. On another note I would not have let such young tree bear fruit. It needs to establish properly first.
Check out the RHS website for more advice on formative pruning.

 

Thanks for the reply , im unsure exactly what you mean, i thought fan training was on a Wall ? , which branches would you lop off and would you take the lower ones completely off to the main trunk ?
Re more supports , how shouldni go about this ?
Yeah as you may guess i dont have a clue

 

Chris Bowers has a very good guide to pruning apples -

Apple Trees - Planting, Pruning & Pollination - Chris Bowers & Sons

 

Yes traditionally you would train a fan on a wall but you could put a piece of trellis up and train to that. You may not want that in the middle of your border. The best shape for a compact free standing tree is a dwarf pyramid, but as you already have very long growth, it would take a lot of cutting back to get to that, and may need to be done over 2-3 years to avoid shocking the tree too much. The next best shape would be an espalier, a post either side with wires or long battens in between positioned to allow you to tie branches in horizontally. Do look up some of these shapes on line as it will be easier to understand than my description.

 

Do you happen to know what variety it is? Or maybe also the rootstock that the variety is grafted onto? Maybe a bit technical. But it looks rather vigorous. I think you are going to have a fight on your hands as it gets older.

 

Thanks again for the advice , i will try and have a research , the tyoe is a coxes orange pipin

 

...and the rootstock?

 

Cox’s Orange Pippin will need either you or a neighbour to have two (?) other different varieties of apple to pollinate it. I think it’s two. It might only be one. Anyway, it’s not self fertile.

 

In terms of what, and how much to prune, it rather depends on the final shape you want.

 

Im unsure of the actual root stock ,the lady the garden centre said its self pollenating when i purchased it a couple of years ago and this season i think it had 20 plus apples which seemed to be to much fort its spindly branches , my next door neighbour has an apple tree and the house next to them also have a couple, although they look different apples to mine , to be honest i just planted the tree and never thought about maintaining it, which is probably silly of me thinking about it , im gona try and start cutting som of the lonh branches back today .

 

This is what it is

 

The label describes the 3 different rootstocks and how high they will grow, but I don't see anywhere it tells you which one is applicable to your tree?

 

Description on the RHS Plants site.

Buy eating / dessert apple apple 'Cox's Orange Pippin self fertile'