Drew, I'm sorry, I did accidentally (subconsciously on purpose, probably) exaggerate, but the guide doesn't recommend spray after pruning. However, upon further reading, I've found that your information is correct and copper spray is widely recommended after pruning even though it isn't very affective- but enough so to be worth doing according to current Cornell and other guidelines. I stand corrected and thank you for bringing this to my attention. After reading all this material about cherry canker I am somewhat surprised that my careless timing of pruning has never led to any outbreaks of this infection over the last 25 years. Cherries are a minority species in orchards I manage and I am very busy doing non-pruning work in the first couple weeks after trees come out of dormancy. It would be expensive to come back to prune only cherries and peaches at many of the smaller orchards I manage. I recently started managing cherries with summer pruning anyway- but only to better manage fruiting wood. I will now pay more attention to weather forecasts before performing this kind of pruning. I will wait until I actually see some cherry canker somewhere before I start spraying after pruning. I have to keep customer expenses down. If you hadn't posted about it I wouldn't think about cherry canker much at all. Thanks again.

I have a 9 year old apricot tree that has never been pruned. I'm planning to heavy prune it and remove 90% of its branches. It is also infected with shot hole disease. Since last fall, I've been treating it with fungicide and applying it only to branches that won't be removed. I read that it's best to prune an apricot tree while it's blooming, reason being that it is better able to fight off infections and heal faster. I live in Montreal. We had a colder than usual spring, so the buds haven't opened up yet. The next three days will be dry. It's usually always dry/wet here. I also would like to have this done and get over it. Question is: Should I wait or should I do it when it's blooming?

Yes, I have another ('Goldenglow' dwarf) new one planted similar to the old one- the old variety ( 'Goldenglow' dwarf) is no longer available in the U.S now I guess. I just was curious as to whether I could prune this 'ancient' one back to get more new growth or if I would kill it by doing so?! We are not real fans of apricots as were not fond of most having rather dry, bland flavors but this one has had such great tasting apricots ... juicy & flavorful! Hopefully the new one close to the same variety will also be great. All our fruit trees began flowering very early this year as we have had such mild weather (zone 7/ 5280 ft.) but we have had frosts in early May some years so not getting our hopes (or appetites!) up yet!! We planted a 4-in-1 dwarf apple tree years ago but after 8 years of NO blossoms or fruits we gave up & cut the tree down ... ONLY to find on the tree now cut & laying on the ground: ONE apple that had formed among the dense leaves that year :( Now we jokingly planted one of those 'Fruit Cocktail' 6-in-1 grafted trees. SURPRIZE!! this the third year, it has 4 different branches in bloom (some white blossoms, some shades of pink). Anxious to see what fruit now develops! :) Thanks for your ideas & suggestions .... will maybe try to prune back just a couple of the branches of the old tree this summer after the fruit is gone to see what develops on that branch later in the season ..... or next year.

I highly recommend you purchase this book on pruning fruit trees. It has a chapter on apricots https://m.barnesandnoble.com/w/how-to-prune-fruit-trees-twentieth-edition-r-sanford-martin/1116993444