The Fruit Tree Pruning Guide: When & How to Prune Fruit Trees

If you have fruit trees, you want them to be productive and vigorous so that you'll get lots of spring flowers and summer fruit. This means you'll have to prune them regularly and correctly.

Not sure when or how to prune your fruit trees?

Pruning corrects the natural tendencies of fruit trees that may counterproductive to growing fruit or undesirable. The natural tendency to grow too many shoots and large branches ultimately causes shading in the interior canopy and lower branches. This lack of sunlight inhibits flowering and weakens branches. Trees with an open, well-lit canopy grow larger fruit compared to trees that grow into a thicket. Because they are trees, they can grow to tall heights, which creates difficulty in harvesting. Branches that grow beyond a height or length that is desired can be shortened or removed by pruning.

Trees can be pruned to have a certain shape that is designed to be more fruitful or to be visually pleasing within the landscape. Pruning is the standard way to remove dead and dying branches. To partly correct the tendency of apple trees to bear fruit in alternate years can be partly corrected with pruning. There are many reasons for pruning fruit trees. Why prune fruit trees at all? Unpruned trees, especially young ones, will grow branches galore and push out blooms each year. These, in turn, will become fruit. The more each bloom has to compete, the smaller the fruit will be. Too many blooms and fruits competing for nutrition from the tree can be a burden and eventually cause damage to the tree.

The best time to prune fruit trees is late winter into early spring when it will least affect winter hardiness and tree health. Summer pruning in late July or August is another time when pruning can be performed, but severe pruning at this time will weaken the tree. Therefore, the majority of pruning should be done during winter or spring. Pruning lessens winter hardiness to a small degree, so pruning in early winter can lead to winter injury when it is followed by severely cold temperatures. It takes two weeks for the tree to regain winter hardiness that is lost due to pruning.

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