Tall tree needs to be shorned as now handicapped

Question

Tree is great but 12 feet tall and I can no longer use a pole cutter. Want to reduce height to 8 feet or so friends can cut oranges for me with the least work by them.

Thanks for any ideas of how to go about this.

John Fritsche

Answer 1

I discourage you from doing the extreme topping like you are suggesting. It can be detrimental and expose the stems to sunburn and decay.
There are long handled fruit pickers available. Or hire a neighbor kid to climb and pick the fruit for you.
If you are set on the radical crown reduction, it would be best to hire a professional arborist to do selective reduction prunin. It's impossible to teach it in a text message like this.