From the video guy's comments, I think he plans on coming back and pruning correctly later (very early spring, hopefully). Since the video was made going into winter, there's no real need to prune the stubs down now, and there may actually be a small advantage in leaving the stub. There's slightly less likelihood of winter damage in the part of the tree that will be kept if he leaves the stubs until very early spring.

Did he say when he made the initial cuts? I wasn't paying close attention, if he did. If he did the pruning recently, I'd say he made the correct decision. If it was much earlier (spring or early summer, especially), he probably missed the opportunity for earlier wound coverage.

This post was edited by brandon7 on Sat, Aug 9, 14 at 13:04

Proper pruning of fruit trees sometimes is very extreme and very different from regular shade tree pruning. I don't like my dad's apple trees, I guess lack of good pruning has made his trees put out little apples, and no chemical use, makes these insect ridden little apples, but the deer chomped on a nearby Burr oak baby, rather than eat those apples. So fruit trees are kinda labor intensive, at least a little bit. That's my view, it is worth it to some people though. A good thing to apple lovers.