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August
04
2011Summer Fruit Tree Pruning
Written by Jungle Jim
Don’t forget to prune your fruit trees this summer! Summer pruning is the key to making a backyard orchard easily manageable. There are at least a half dozen reasons we have for summer pruning your backyard fruit trees: height, air circulation, ease of spraying, crop control, thinning, training...the list goes on and on.
The first year or two, you may only need to do light pruning to keep more vigorous varieties in check, for training, air circulation or to stimulate lower growth. In subsequent years, you can cut back vigorous new growth by half - twice or even more often - in the summer. Although you can cut back quite a bit of growth, keep in mind the sun exposure that will be caused to previously shaded limbs. Try to avoid creating a situation for sunburn.
With some summer pruning for height control, your workload this winter and next spring will be lightened. If you would like more information on summer pruning fruit trees, see our Guide to Fruit Bush Training and Dave Wilson Nursery’s Backyard Orchard Culture and Controlling Fruit Tree Size guide.
The first year or two, you may only need to do light pruning to keep more vigorous varieties in check, for training, air circulation or to stimulate lower growth. In subsequent years, you can cut back vigorous new growth by half - twice or even more often - in the summer. Although you can cut back quite a bit of growth, keep in mind the sun exposure that will be caused to previously shaded limbs. Try to avoid creating a situation for sunburn.
With some summer pruning for height control, your workload this winter and next spring will be lightened. If you would like more information on summer pruning fruit trees, see our Guide to Fruit Bush Training and Dave Wilson Nursery’s Backyard Orchard Culture and Controlling Fruit Tree Size guide.
Jungle Jim
