Blind Wood

[GF3]

hello.
I have a Lord Lambourne tree (MM106) and this is the third summer that it has been in the ground. The branches have a lot of "blind Wood", no leaves at all along most of the length of the branches.(I've attched a photo, taken a month ago). I have tried "notching" but this does not appear to have worked (I did the notching on the 8th May). I did a graft onto one of the tree branches in April, I cut the branch back about 8 inches and did the graft. The graft took and directly below the graft point leaves sprouted out from 3 dormant buds (see pic 2). Question is - how can I get the other branches to leaf out?

[ameno]

To be honest, that looks fairly natural to me. Usually only the top-most 3-4 buds of each stem actually open and produce leaves, and 80-90% of the leaves on any given tree grow from wood produced this same season, not old wood.

The only solution is one you probably won't like: hard pruning.
If following the recommended pruning regimes for young trees, such long branches never should have been left like that in the first place. They should have been reduced by two-thirds the winter of the year they were produced. By doing so you create a stocky, bushy tree, rather than the long, leggy one you have.
So either prune it hard this winter (cut all of those long branches back by at least half), or else you'll just have to accept that that's what your tree is going to look like now.

[GF3]

Thanks for the reply.
I think I will give the hard pruning a go - maybe doing it over a period of a few years, one or may be two branches at a time. I didn't prune it after its first year in the ground - but I did do it this February, but I only cut about 1/3 of last years growth. I have been reading up about notching and it appears that the older the wood the less succesfull it is.

[ameno]

Yeah, when you first planted it you really ought to have reduced all long stems by at least half, if not two-thirds. This is a good example of what happens when you don't do that.

As for doing it over a few years, you don't really need to do that tree health-wise. That tree is yet small enough that cutting all those long branches back by half won't do it any harm and it will grow back strong the next year.
The only real disadvantage with doing it all at once is that you will lose most of your apple crop for that year, as you will be pruning out most of the flower buds. But you should still get a normal crop the following year.
If you do choose to stagger it, I would suggest doing it in no more than two stages (half this winter, half next winter). Remember, the longer you leave it before pruning, the bigger those branches you are removing will get, so the more you will end up chopping off. Plus it will get harder and harder to keep track of what does or doesn't need pruning that year.