Mature Apple Tree Renovation

This video outlines the year 1 phase of mature apple tree renovation. I have a small orchard of 6 apple trees on the farm. As with everything else on the farm, they have been severely neglected over the last 20 years. Last year, i got to the farm too late in the spring to do any significant pruning, so I had a chance to watch them and see what they did before taking action. The trees bloomed and produced teeny tiny small green apples and did show signs of cedar rust disease. After learning a lot from UA-cam and talking to a local expert, I formulated a plan for the next three years to get this orchard back in production shape.
Now, because of how old they are and how diseased they are, I'm not entirely sure what type of apples these are. A plant identification app told me they were paradise apples, but we'll try it again this year and see if it shows us anything different.
In this video, I use my chainsaw and loppers to prune back approximately 40% of each of the six trees. Each tree has at least one tall, large branch that will need to be topped, but I'll have Soil Allen come in to help with that.
I start by cutting the lower branches to make the tree accessible so that I could look up and determine which major branches were contributing to it's height. I think start taking down the branches that I can.
Next, I move in with my loppers and take down anything that's too low, growing straight up/down, causing congestion, looks dead or diseased and anything that's colliding with the tree next to it.
Finally, I apply a copper fungicide to help get rid of the cedar rust infestation we had last year. I don't believe I have any cedar trees on the property, but the spores could have been blown in from up to a 2 mile radius.
I worked on this project over the course of 2 weeks, stopping temporarily while a late spring freeze and snow came through. I finished up just this week and I'm really proud of the progress made. I can't wait to see how it fills in this summer.
Year 2, the tree will fight back with a lot of vegetative growth and we'll need to prune all that back as well. I may have to use a fungicide again next year if I didn't eliminate the cedar rust disease with this year's copper fungicide application.
By Year 3, I'm hoping we'll be down to just regular 20-25% prunes each year and that we'll be harvesting healthy edible apples!
I try very hard in my videos to make these projects feel accessible. We can do hard things! Sometimes we just need a little education, bravery and support.