I have a 3-in-1 apple I purchased bareroot at a fruit tree sale this past winter. It's a combination of Apple, Dorsett Golden, and Fuji on M111. I've never dealt with a multi-grafted tree before so I'm wondering how to prune it the first winter to develop the 3 varietal branches into the main scaffold branches for the tree. With a typical single-variety tree the advice I've seen says to cut off the main 3-4 scaffold branches at 24-36" to encourage branching. I'm wondering if an X-in-1 tree would be any different.

So, would you suggest that I leave the branches as they are and allow the varietal branches to develop normally, or lop them off to encourage branching?

Also, do I need to be concerned about balancing the branches if one variety tends to show more dominance? If so, how would I go about doing that?

And finally, I assume the same would apply to other X-in-1 fruit trees (peaches, plums, etc) that I may purchase in the future?

Thanks for your help to this newbie orchard hobbyist!

I ended up getting an answer from this from Dave Wilson nurseries. They suggested I do some spring pruning and even out the limbs and begin the pruning process to keep the tree manageable. My previous pruning experience has been limited to winter pruning so this is all new to me. Anyways, thought this might help someone in a similar situation. We'll see how it goes!