Tips For Pruning Fruit Trees

In order to maintain the health and productivity of fruit trees, it is necessary to prune them on a regular basis. The process of pruning helps to remove any wood that is dead or diseased while also helping to control growth. Even more importantly, it helps to stimulate the growth of flowers and fruit buds.

It is generally best to prune fruit trees early in the season during the time when the buds are just beginning to break. At this stage, the soft tissue can actually be simply pinched off without the use of tools.

By pruning a young fruit tree and training its branches carefully, a fruit tree will produce larger amounts of fruit and will live for many years. This is because proper training and pruning will actually help prevent injuries from occurring down the road and will help keep the tree strong. This, in turn, will prevent it from breaking from excessive fruit loads or from snow.

A one year old tree that does not yet have side shoots should be pruned immediately after planting. This will help create the primary branches that will grow during its first season. If the tree does have several side branches, the main stem should be pruned back and the side shoots should be shortened. The lower shoots, however, should be removed completely.

Once the fruit tee is two years old, any lower shoots should be removed and the shoots around the best shoots should also be removed in order to allow the strongest shoots a place to grow. These will develop into the main structural branches of the tree.

Once the tree is three years old, it is time to select four laterals to keep so they can help form the framework. These branches need to be cut in half while the other branches are removed. Now, the tree should be ready to start producing fruit.