Pruning may be defined as the art and science of cutting away a portion of the plant to improve its shape, influence its growth, flowering, and fruitfulness, and improve the quality of the product.
Pruning Improvement
Experiments have demonstrated a definite improvement in fruit size, color, and quality in response to pruning.
These three factors are essential in obtaining the highest prices available and are the most favorable evidence regarding the effects of pruning.
Thick Trees: Affect The Color of Fruit
A heavy shade covers most of the fruit when your tree’s growth is exceptionally thick. This shading prevents direct exposure to sunlight, thus unfavorably affecting the color of the fruit.
A dense, unpruned tree also produces fruits of small size and poor color due to an unfavorable nitrogen-carbohydrate relationship.
Although pruning will improve both size and color, it is recommended that the practice be light or moderate, with thinning as a supplement, to receive a proper leaf-to-fruit ratio.
Growth of the Fruit Trees
Do your trees have limbs that hang on the ground or go straight up in the air so that you can not possibly reach the fruit?
Let us consider the growth of our fruit trees.
Pruning Upright Branches
If your variety tends to develop spreading, horizontal branches, the pruning should be designed to stimulate the upright branches and prevent the formation of an interlocking thicket.
If the growth is upright, the cuts should induce a spreading growth to make spraying, thinning, and picking easier.
Primary Purpose of Pruning
The primary purpose then is to obtain a uniform tree capable of supporting large yields of high-quality fruit.
The total growth attained by an unpruned tree is always greater than that of a pruned tree, regardless of the type or amount of pruning.
Light Pruning: Dwarfing Effect
With this, the advisability of light pruning has proven that the extent of the reduction in total growth following pruning is proportional to the severity of the pruning.
An old saying, “prune when the knife is sharp,” has not been supported by experimental evidence.
With a dwarfing effect in mind, the comparison between Su turner and dormant pruning has been made.
Summer Pruning
Summer pruning has a greater dwarfing effect, and removal during this time prohibits leaf formation – which consists of the replacement of carbohydrates – thus depriving the affected trees of their future products.
It has been noted that very few growers or professional horticulturists in this country have ever widely adopted Summer pruning.
Pruning Cut
In response to pruning, you will notice that the growth is most pronounced in those branches, shoots, and spurs immediately surrounding the pruning cut, even though the effect will extend throughout the remainder of the tree.
Then again, when you reduce the surface area, there is an increase in the water supply available to the remaining growing points, and for this reason, an effect upon the growth of the distant portions of the tree results.
If your trees produce fruit that is not of marketable value, why not do something about it?
Little Pruning: Marketable Fruit
Perhaps a little pruning or thinning will result in marketable fruit once again. Let us consider some of the effects of pruning on the yield.
We face a very practical problem in determining the amount of pruning that will produce good results and still not reduce the marketable yield unnecessarily. The effect will largely depend upon the condition of the trees at the time of pruning.
Dense Trees: Light Pruning
Light to moderate pruning will tend to increase the marketable yield if the trees are dense and the leaves shade the fruit considerably.
Then again, if the trees have recently been pruned and are making satisfactory growth, even moderate pruning will reduce the total marketable yield to the point where the net return will be considerably decreased.
Purpose of Pruning
With all these factors in mind, we can say that the purpose of pruning at any specific time depends upon the age of the plant, its vegetative growth, and whether it is bearing or non-hearing.
If pruning is performed at planting time or the following few years, its purpose should be to train or shape the tree so that the scaffold branches will develop strong, wide-angled crotches for bearing fruit without breaking. It is never too soon to prune.
44659 by Daniel Witt