Tree limbs broken by too heavy a fruit load need to be sawed off. One last mowing is done to keep the grass from providing too much cover to rodents. The main rodents that apple growers are concerned with are voles that will eat apple bark at or below ground level girdling a tree and thus killing it. Damage is limited by reducing their numbers by an application of poison bait after harvest, by trying to make the orchard habitat unattractive to them, and by protecting the tender bark of the trunks of young trees with guards of various types, and by cheering on the predators. We like foxes and coyotes.
Apples are graded, packed, and marketed all winter as previously mentioned.
The other major job done in the winter and early spring is pruning. Major cuts are made when the trees are dormant. Every tree should be pruned every year. Trees are pruned to renew fruiting wood, to let light into as much of the tree as possible, to encourage moderate vigor, and to maintain the tree at a convenient height and shape. The mad scramble to finish up pruning always seems to run right into the need to perform those jobs belonging to beginning of the growing season when the cycle starts again.