What pruning techniques work for stone-fruit and pear pruning?

12 years ago

All,

I have learned so much from reading posts over the last couple years, now that I have a bunch of new fruit trees (apricot, plums, and pears) I am looking into the subject of pruning (links to old posts would be great!).

I know there are several schools of thought when it comes to pruning (heck, every nursery that sends a brochure w/plants seems to have its own way). I am looking for input from forum posters on what works in humid Maryland (way different than California!) and looking to achieve the following in my orchard:

- Trees that are 8 feet tall or less

- Trees that have minimal disease problems (as I understand this can partially be achieved by pruning to achieve good circulation, ie. branches should be well-spaced - Scott Smith has posted on this before)

- Trees that allow for squirrel defense (trunks that are unbranched for the first 3-4 feet so I can put smooth metal or plastic material around them if needed)

- Notes: Deer are not a problem for me since my orchard is fenced. My trees are spaced at least 8 feet apart, except for two Euro. pears which are more like 5-6 ft apart.

Given what I am looking to achieve, should I be pruning all my trees to "open-center"? For some reason I am thinking that open-center might lead to shorter trees than central-leader, but I could be totally off.

Any feedback from those who have already been through this before would be great. Book reccs would also be good.

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Comments (8)

mootube
12 years ago
I'm green to a lot of things, correct pruning being one so I'll impart really the only useful if vague tip I can think of. If you've seen the way sweet cherrys like to put out few long branches before a terminal it makes sense. I believe the method was to tip new branches to about a foot or two early in the year and it encourages many more fruiting terminals. Vague and perhaps someone can correct me if it's wrong but that's one thing I wish I'd known before my sunburst grew tall. Cheers.
Scott F Smith
12 years ago
Lind, if you want a low, wide tree for easy picking then I agree open center is the best. I use open center on all my more widely spaced trees, whatever kind of tree it is. The way to conceive of the open center is its like a bowl of leaves, all the leaves are concentrated in a bowl-like shape and so all the leaves get good sun since there are not many leaves above or below the "bowl". Of course this is just an idealization, but its the root of getting good sun on your open center tree -- imagine the bowl, and remove too-high and too-low branches. The bowl ends up being several feet thick, and it will very from this ideal in many cases due to the way the scaffolds are going. My latest favorite link is the one below, it shows a peach pruned to open center. Its more like a plate than a bowl, thats even better but is harder to pull off. In terms of details of how to prune, that is a very complex topic. I would spend several hours reading every on-line description from the various states and watching youtube videos until you start to get a sense of things a bit better. Pictures that show actual trees evolving over the years are the most helpful, but those are pretty hard to come by. Pruning was by far the hardest thing for me to learn, grafting is much easier.

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: NCSU peach pruning
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mamuang_gw
12 years ago
Hi Scott,

I'm, too, new to pruning and want all my trees to be easy to pick. Do I understand you correctly that if so, I could prune them all open center, no matter if they're apple, pears, peach, plum or cherry? (I have them all-with minimal pruning so far due to lack of pruning knowledge).

From what I've read and watched (Youtube), people seem to suggest central lead for apple and pear. I don't want to climb a ladder to pick my 15 ft pears (it's getting there).

I respect your opinion greatly and appreciate your input. thank you.
steve_in_los_osos
12 years ago
I'm no expert but what has stuck in my brain as I've read and listened to people who are (crop science people from the local U, for example) is two things:

1. Choose scaffolds wisely. Don't get them too close to each other. Remember, the branches won't always be that skinny.

2. If you're serious about size control consider this: how much new growth should you leave on each season when you prune? A simple math progression will suggest it can't be much or your tree will quickly outgrow your plans for its ultimate size. One prof whose presentation I attended recently suggested that 6" is the correct answer. The result of such a practice will be a bushy tree with a strong tendency toward spur formation (i.e., more fruit bearing wood). Such a tree may need thinning ultimately, but its size will be under control.
alan haigh
12 years ago
I would suggest that an 8' tall peach tree with the necessary 4' of trunk required to baffle out squirrels seems impossible to me. Maybe you should shoot for 10-12'. An 8' ultimate height would require beginning the open center abut 18-24" above the ground, I believe.

I usually train peaches as a central leader for at least the first 2 years and cut out the center once I've selected my scaffolds. For the first 2 years I remove any branches more than half the diameter at the point of attachment to the trunk and leave everything else to nourish the tree.

Eventually I leave only 3 permanent scaffold branches. Training is a lot less complicated than maintaining peach trees.
armyofda12mnkeys
12 years ago
Try some Backyard Orchard Culture for some short open-center-vase-shaped trees:

Here's some background info:
http://www.davewilson.com/homegrown/BOC_explained.html
http://www.davewilson.com/homegrown/gardencompass/gc01_mar_apr_01.html

Some vids that prob have them pruning some trees: http://www.davewilson.com/video/video_Index.html
Tha Pranksta
12 years ago
I've got Grow Fruit by Alan Buckingham. While it seems to be pretty decent as far as training for a particular shape. It doesn't mention pruning for overall size maintenance at all. I've got a lot of reading and research to do personally with other sources. I've got a lot of new shoots very near the ground on my newly planted trees. I'm thinking I should just pinch some of them off so I don't have any low branching.

Pruning is a little scary (especially with the peach tree). I know the trees should be fine and will recover from mistakes as long as I don't do anything too off to them. I'm looking forward to it a little bit.
john_in_sc
12 years ago
Another simple rule is to cut off anything that grows straight up, straight down, or crosses another branch or the trunk.

When you cut your branch off - make sure to cut it so the terminal bud is either pointing down, or out - not up or in.. Down pointing terminal buds will grow out rather than up or down (usually...) THey also tend to fruit sooner rather than heading for the sky without ever making fruit...

If you notice - another thing they do is to get rid of the lower hanging stuff under the scaffolds - as the fruit won't get direct sun - so won't be as sweet....

Last - there's a lot of additional work going into training a tree initally... You see talk about tying down branches and spreading them with boards - so you get a nice, strong, wide crotch angle rather than a narrow, weak crotch angle...

Thanks

What pruning techniques work for stone-fruit and pear pruning?

Comments (8)

mootube

Scott F Smith

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