Trees planted in an already established orchard are curiously enough slow to make headway, and therefore in such cases I always advise grubbing.
Having decided that one is going to keep the trees, it is then necessary to start on the renovation scheme. This may begin with the removal of large numbers of trees because the orchard has been overplanted.
It is possible to buy in colonies of Aphelintis mali in the spring in order to start colonies going in an orchard. Though it is often said that it pays to scrap these and start all over again, this is by no means true.
By removing, say, alternate rows from north to south when the orchard is planted on the triangular system or by taking out every other tree when the plantation has been planned on the square system you give adequate room for trees that have been starved of light and whose branches are undoubtedly going into one another.
It is a very good plan to mark the trees which are to be removed with a ring of white paint. If you, yourself, do this, then those you are employing to do the digging up of the trees will not make any mistakes.
The job is started by sawing off all the branches on the trees marked with the white paint and then, having done this, it is usually possible, on a fairly large orchard, to get hold of a Fordson or Ferguson tractor and, having put a chain around the offending
