[benkt]

We're running out of space at the farm for sheep, so I've arranged to 'rent' an orchard for them as a bit of extra grazing. The whole thing is about 5 acres of which we're fencing off the least overgrown couple of acres for the sheep. There's another two or three acres of very overgrown old trees at the other end that we can use for fruit. I've started work on strimming the head-high nettles down around the trees and am looking for some advice on how to bring the thing back into proper use. Its mostly apples, with some pear and plum and the trees are between 30 and 60 years old! Quite a few are totally past it and in need of taking out and replanting but what to do with the large but productive old apple trees?  
Thanks,
Ben

[pgkevet]

I suppose it all depends on what the folk you're renting from will allow...and how many trees there are..as in perhaps way more than you could ever use anyway? If so i'd be brutal - rip out the duds for space and ventilation and a heavy reinvigorating autumn prune on the rest. If you need a huge amount of apples next year then perhaps just heavily prune half and see how they get on before doing the rest.

many many moons ago .. (about 50years).. a neighbour was selling his land.. My dad liked one of his old apple trees and we pruned it back just to a few stubs of branches, cut around the base .. roots and all.. and moved the thing to our garden. It took fine and was a brilliant tree until this year finally succumbing to a storm. Even then if I didn't live so far from my parents place it might have been pruned and replanted after some years of neglect (dad died 20yrs ago and mum is 97..so not much into garden maintenance).

[cloddopper]

If your allowed ....you can cut the rubbish trees to a 2 to 3 foot tall stump . Treat the cut with a proprietary sealer  then in spring take some decent 18 " sicons off good trees and graft them into the old stumps,  you can even mix several trees into one if you feel like it.

When I was bee keeping I saw quite a few small orchards about 50 trees each that had several types of eating apple on each tree.