I have a very good grasp of what this entails and have put considerable time and planning into this endeavor. The two guys at the local CPS, (Crop Productions services office, where I get all my chemicals) have mentored me for years. The new way of growing apples is this trellis system. Amazingly enough, 300 trees will fit in the same area that formerly had 28 standard size as spacing changes from 25 x 25' to 3 x 14'.
As far as time. The new system won't take any longer than the old system and picking, pruning and spraying will be much easier. I no longer care for scampering around above the red step on my Stokes 10' orchard ladder.
This will be safer.
Thanks for the offer regarding your sister.
This guy is excellent and has a whole series on this: