newsb wrote:
I may well be wrong, but thought that if you prune such growth in winter
it just encourages it to grow more next year. That's certainly what
happened to one of my apples last year. This year, I've given it a
pretty severe late summer haircut so will see how it goes.

HOOO!! 'ello you!! Hope all is well with you and family! It's so funny
you say the above. I've done the same on my apple tree (4 yrs old now).
I had an awfull lot of vertical young branches after pruning last year.
It depends when your tree is fruiting. Mine is an early fruiter, by end
of august I have no apples left. This year I was away in France for 3
weeks and when I returned I had a lot of fallen apples which I have
lost sadly (tho my neighbour enjoyed a couple, so she said ...). I'll
try to go on hols around the time of my fruiting apple tree, as if life
wasn't already difficult deep sigh