Jim Swindeman would like to use knipboom trees for all of their plantings. It’s a no-brainer to plant knip-boom, highly feathered trees, says tree fruit grower Jim Swindeman. The problem is finding them. Swindeman, a partner in Applewood Orchards in Deerfield, Michigan, said that knip trees are not a new concept. Years ago, after cutting a young tree infected with fireblight back to a whip, he discovered the explosive growth and horizontal branching that occurred on the tree in the next year. “We’re convinced that if we could get every tree like that, we would plant only knip trees,” he […]