Fruit Tree Care: Pre-Pruning
I reflect back to a younger man 20 years old with a 110-tree orchard and his difficulty in cutting off limbs in a newly planted orchard for the very first time. Today’s topic goes beyond that small orchard; it involves years of lining out and pre-pruning thousands of trees.
Pruning at planting time is probably the hardest thing for the home fruit grower to do; yet to get fruit trees off to the right start, experts will tell you it’s absolutely necessary! Many home growers fear that pruning will either hurt their tree or give it a substantial setback in size, delaying the first fruit crop. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not-pruning might enhance early bearing by a season, but the poor quality of fruit and the drain on the tree’s reserve system create more negatives than positives.
There are three basic reasons for pruning fruit trees: survival, stimulation and shaping. I’ll touch on two of these here.
Survival
If we could see beneath the ground, we would see activity that parallels what’s going on above. When you prune at planting time, you cut the tree back to its substantial wood, giving the root system less surface area to feed and much-needed time to establish in the soil. This is important because, during the digging and handling process prior to transplant, bare root trees lose some of their tiny feeder roots — these are the roots that absorb moisture and nutrients. If the top part of the tree is not pruned back to compensate for the lost roots, an imbalance may occur, causing the tree to put out weak, impeded growth.
Stimulation
By pre-pruning before planting, you give your trees the strength to survive transplantation. Pre-pruning will also stimulate stronger, more vigorous growth from the remaining buds on your tree. Usually after a single growing season, a pruned tree will equal or exceed a matching unpruned tree.
This first step of pre-pruning is one of the most important decisions in the life of your fruit tree.
Stark Bro’s
During one of our staff meetings recently, we decided to prune all of our bare root fruit trees before we ship them. Making decisions like this can be difficult, especially when it adds cost to the company, not to mention the additional work.
Stark Bro’s used to provide this pruning service for a small fee; but as the grower, we take great pride in how our trees perform for our customers. So we’ve decided to take a proactive step forward and pre-prune, by hand, every bare root fruit tree we ship to you. It’s another way for us to invest in the success of your fruit-bearing endeavors, and we’re confident you will see the positive results when planting these pre-pruned trees.
– Elmer
12 comments on “Fruit Tree Care: Pre-Pruning”
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OK, I bought one dwarf apple tree late in the spring planting season last year at a discount and I didn’t know I should prune it. Should I prune it back now?
Donna, if your tree is still dormant, it’s the perfect time to prune.
Make sure the cuts are at an angle, above a bud. Prune away any branches that are growing *in* towards the tree. If any branches are criss-crossing each other, prune one back right above a bud, so they don’t overlap.
Donna,
Based on what they wrote “We decided to prune all of our fruit trees before we ship them”, I think you can pass on it and wait until next fall.
Hi Jeff! We just started pre-pruning ALL bare root trees this spring. Last year we offered the service, but not everyone opted for it. This year, we’ve decided to go ahead & give every bare root tree a pruning before we ship them.
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so happy to see that you are pruning your trees! i was more afraid that i would prune too much or cut incorrectly so i didn’t prune the first year. we are so happy with our trees now! we will be adding more as we prepare beds for our trees in new areas. thank you for this service! it encourages me to buy from you instead of the local nursery. on THAT note: we have found that your ‘stick’ trees are outperforming more substantial trees that we purchased from local nurseries.
Thanks for taking the time to comment, Alison! Pruning is definitely important to our business – if you ever had a chance to talk with Elmer in person, it would be hard to get him to stop espousing its virtues!
All trees go through that “stick/whip” stage, & transplanting at that age is actually more beneficial to the tree than waiting until it’s older/larger. So glad to hear that yours are doing well!
I purchased 3 peach trees 2 years ago,Bare root,
all three bloomed (early) , we had two frost during the that time (late march)2012. all three trees set on fruit,the peaches are walnut size now.5-1-12,one of the trees lost most of it’s fruit during a windy thunderstorm,the other two are fine,the two with healthy fruit are redhaven and relliance,I don’t
know the name of the tree that lost it’s fruit.you could look up my purchase and maybe see what kind if tree it was.
Robert Nall
Quincy, Il
Hi Robert! I don’t see any record of a peach-tree purchase in our system. If you happened to pick them up at our retail location, this could be why. They’re a different department and keep their own records.
Wind, hail, and other weather can certainly be a cause of fruit drop so that is not unusual at all! The damage may affect this year’s crop but it’s not permanent; next year should bring on more peaches.
i have purchased some fruit trees and vines from you over the past 3 years each one of these trees have grown to huge heights [some 12 to 15 feet cherries ,pears etc] most spiendly and no fruit i have fertz them 3 times a season grape vines with runners 8-10 long and running everwhere with no fruit the oposite with blueberry real small plants little growth but some fruit what should i do to reverse this trend this spring in zone 7-8 north carolina
Hi Don! Most fertilizers have a high nitrogen content and, to plants, this translates to vegetative growth (branches, leaves, etc.) and not necessarily fruit production. This may be why your plants, vines, and trees have grown “spindly”. You should consider pruning a third of the *new growth* each year (NOT a third of the whole tree, just new growth), while your trees are dormant. This will help to encourage sturdier branching instead. Proper pruning will help open up your trees and vines to sunlight, develop fruiting buds, and will avoid them becoming too vegetative — a situation where the plants will put their energy into supporting long leafy growth rather than try to set fruit.
The time it takes to produce fruit depends on the type of fruit tree or plant you’re growing and their maturity. You can find out more about the individual estimated fruiting maturities in our article here: How many years until your tree bears fruit? For example, with grapes, it can take about 2-4 years before they begin to bear.
Blueberries need a low soil pH (4.5-5.5) to be happy and healthy plants. They are unable to take in certain essential nutrients if their pH is too high, so you should test your soil to see if maybe the pH is not quite right for blueberry plants. We carry a Digital Plus Soil pH Meter for testing soil pH, but you can also find a soil test kit at your local garden center, or even contact your local county Extension service (find yours here: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/) to have them perform a soil sample test for you for a small fee.
I hope this information helps you get your plants and trees on the right track for fruit production in the next year or so, Don!