No ladders are needed as pickers harvest fruit from these five-year-old cordon-trained El Dorado plum trees at the Elliot Ranch, Tulare County. Eight to 10 upright shoots developing from one horizontal limb (in each direction down the row) are selected for the permanent framework of the cordon trained plum trees. Horizontal limbs are trained for three years by bending and tying them flat along a staked wire at first dormant pruning.