that is a bit unusual to have so many vertical limbs on that small of a tree. I would cut all but five verticals back all the way. The five you save...head them back at the ends...to produce horizontal secondary branching.

the trees had been growing quite nicely in the first few years then someone brutally chopped off all the good "scaffold" branches and the result is you have all of these shoots headed for the sky.

problem for you now is if you cut too much in one year you get more of this desperate growth. So it will take a long time to fix this... although it may be a candidate for what is known as the tall spindly method of growth. I don't know aytihng about that, but others will be along who do

I wouldn't cut anything back for now, I don't think. Better to just thin those uprights to just a few of the least vigorous ones so you can begin getting fruit and calm the tree down, although if you manage the hydra affect you can also go the other way- but it will wind up taking much longer to get the tree into productivity again.

I so much prefer neglected trees to abused ones. Abuse takes much more time to completely correct, but you may get fruit from the remaining limbs even this year if you go the thinning route.

Oh my Anthony. I would contact a local nursery or two and also an arborist before doing anything. That is one wrongly pruned tree. Good luck and keep us posted.

I've reconstructed scores of apple trees more or less like that. The problem is the shoots at the point of the stub cuts are competing like very crowded individual trees in a forest, shading each other so they are all hell bent for light. Thin them out and the remaining ones will begin to branch out. It may take 4 years for the tree to return to an attractive and truly productive shape but it will happen.

In the old days that was a standard renovative technique called "dehorning" , cutting back scaffold branches to large diametered stubs, but you are supposed to begin retraining it at first new growth.

yeah...somebody made a Hell of a mess out of that tree.

In the old days that was a standard renovative technique called "dehorning" , cutting back scaffold branches to large diametered stubs, but you are supposed to begin retraining it at first new growth.

And now that's essentially what YOU have to do. Dehorn it and retrain the new growth into something workable. On the plus side it looks pretty vigorous...shouldn't be a problem.
Like H'man said don't cut everything back...just thin and imo do so rather heavily.

Look at the buds and cut just above ones that face in the ultimate direction (mostly outward) that you think would be most advantageous.

Purely out of curiousity, do you know what variety it is?

I repeat, don't cut the remaining poles (after serious thinning) back to a stub if you want the fastest results. I would only repeat the "dehorning" if the remaining poles failed to begin to fill out the first season, in which case you could stub them back the following, but wait until well after the tree leafs out next year. It is generally much better to cut a branch back to an existing shoot than to a stub.

I failed to ask if the tree is in good sun exposure? If it gets good light, the restructuring will go much more smoothly and rapidly.

HUGE thanks to everyone for their comments and help!!!

To answer a couple of the questions, I'm not sure what type they and they get "ok" sunlight. There are some big trees around and the house is just to east of these trees, so its not as bad as it could be.

If I've interpreted what people have said correctly the following is what I am planning on doing... Remove about 50 - 75% of the vertical shoots, proportionally taking the most fro the centre of the tree and keeping the most vigorous shoots. When I cut off the selected vertical shoots, I'm going to cut them back to where they shoot from the main branch, just at the branch bark ridge. For the branches that are left, I am going to leave them alone and not prune them back.

Does this sounds correct? Just wanting to make sure I have understood everything that people have said.

Also, I'm wondering if there is anything I should be doing during the summer? I'm assuming with the amount I'm cutting off, there is going to be a lot of branches shooting out all over the place, should I be cutting those off?

Thanks again for the help.

p.s. Make sure you check the video I linked to in the original post if you want to see the two trees in question better.

Actually, I suggested leaving the LEAST vigorous shoots, but choosing a few of the most vigorous shoots instead can work also, it is just that they can take more time to become fruitful.

You need to bend the shoots you leave to about a 65 degree angle if they are much more vertical than this. I notice that some of the shoots on the outside of the tree are less vertical, and such shoots may be the easiest to manage.

75% removal would be a good starting point. Then remove any new VIGOROUS upright shoots that come from the cuts you've made in mid-summer.

Vertical growth tends to remain vigorous and vegetative (immature) until side shoots from it have enough light and time to start fruiting. Trees want to establish their place in the canopy before settling down to "having a family"- that is, producing fruit and seed. Pulling the branches vertical literally changes hormonal signalling forcing them into maturity.

I am speaking of vigorous vertical growth coming off of larger wood, smaller upright shoots, often called pencils become the site of fruit development.

"Dehorning" (and then failing to follow up) must be what the previous owners of my house did with the Winter Nelis pear tree. It must have been cut back to two large nodules--I joked that they had "pollarded" it, and it looks like many other branches had been chopped off entirely. So it's like a big Y, but then they let ALL the upright shoots that came from the two nodes grow, and apparently stopped paying attention. So when I got here, each branch of the Y had about EIGHT thick trunks coming straight up out of it, all competing for light, all about 3-4 inches in diameter. Talk about abusing a tree! I've taken 2 to 3 of these out per year since 2008, and it's just starting to look like a manageable tree. So there's hope, if you're patient, Anthony! And your apples aren't in as bad shape as my pear tree was. The fact that Winter Nelis pears are divine makes it all worthwhile.

what you should do.. is plant a few new trees .... for the future ...

and these will provide an excellent education in pruning ...

the failsafe new ones... will be there.. in case these dont end up.. worth the effort ...

ken