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Summer Pruning / Pinch An Inch
By Tom Ogren, Fri Dec 9th
Summer Pruning…Pinch an Inch By Tom Ogren Like most people who grow deciduous fruit trees (apples,peaches, plums, cherries, apricots, etc.) I used to do lots ofserious heavy pruning every winter.Each winter I would head backdozens of those long, tall canes that had grown the year before.On some trees, plums in particular, each year I’d often findmyself cutting back a huge number of new branches, many of themwell over six feet in length. I occasionally wondered: Isn’tthis hard pruning cycle putting a big workload on the tree? Eachsummer the tree pours all its energy into growing those overlylong new branches, and then each winter I’d chop them back,trying to keep the tree’s overall height under some semblance ofcontrol. And then too, despite my best intentions and hours ofwork spent pruning, each season the trees still seemed to be abit taller than the year before. However, each winter fordecades I kept up this hard winter pruning, working with thestandard conventional wisdom that it was necessary in order tohave a decent tree and a good set of fruit. At the time it madeperfect sense to me. Because of apical dominance, when a tip iscut off, the next bud back from what is now the tip, this budwill normally sprout next. The topmost bud on any strong branchhas high concentrations of the natural growth hormone, indoleacetic acid (IAA). When we prune grapes (which unlike most pomesand stone fruits, set fruit only on new wood) we have to prunethe last year’s wood hard. We cut back to a few large, strongbuds. The lower down on the branch a bud is, the larger andstronger it is. Thus, heavy pruning makes plenty of sense withgrapes, or others that bloom on new wood, figs, mulberries, androses. But does this same sort of hard pruning make sense withmost fruit trees, trees that do not set their fruit on thecurrent season’s wood?
About a decade ago I read that in order to save money on highlabor costs some orchard owners had resorted to pruning onlyevery other year. Yes, they had to cut off more wood, and thepruning work took a bit longer than normal, but overall theywere saving some money. The interesting thing, too, was thatthis every-other-year-pruning didn’t seem to hurt fruitproduction all that much. I myself started this every other yeardormant pruning and it beat pruning every year, but it stillfelt wasteful, wasteful of the tree’s stored energy. Let’s goback to apical dominance for a moment: Because of apicaldominance, when a branch tip is cut off, the next bud back fromthe new tip, this bud should sprout next. The lower the branchis, the thicker the branch will be, and these lower placeddormant buds will also be larger and potentially much morevigorous. Thus heavy pruning, chopping back to these fat lowerbuds insures lots of vigorous new growth and makes plenty ofsense with grapes, and of course with roses, which also bloom onnew wood. But apples, pears, apricots, plums, peaches,nectarines and cherries don’t set fruit on new wood, they allbloom on wood that is at least a year old. A few years ago Imade a major switch and started doing almost exclusively summerpruning, pinching really. Every few weeks from mid-spring on,whenever I noticed a new branch growing rapidly, I pinched offthe end of it. If you had to use a pair of pruning shears to dothis, we’d call it a “hard pinch,” but what I started doing wasa “soft pinch.” I merely pinched off, with my fingers andthumbnail, the last inch or two of each fast growing branch.Most of us gardeners have done
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some pinching of geraniums,begonias, and especially fuchsias, trying to make them bushier.It works pretty much the same with fruit trees, too. The moreoften you pinch, the more bud breaks you get and the bushieryour tree becomes. I have found with very vigorous branches thatin a season of growth, I may have to pinch that same branchthree or four times, but it seems well worth the effort. The endresult of all this tip pinching is a shorter, more compact fruittree…and one that won’t need much pruning in winter. The treebenefits too, since it no longer has to pour all that energyinto re-growing all that wood each spring. This same energy canthen be converted into producing a larger crop of fruit. Thereis another pleasant benefit, too, from all this constantsnipping and pinching…fewer bugs. Aphids in particular can be aproblem on apricots and apple trees, and they almost always takehold first on the softest, newest, fastest growing wood. Thepinching removes this soft tip, the part most attractive toinsects. The pinching also interrupts the natural apicaldominance present in the terminal end of any fast sproutingbranch and encourages branching. Summer pruning, pinching, isn’trecommended for trees that are growing slowly since it willfurther slow down growth. It is most desirable with trees thatnaturally have a tendency to get much tall than we want them tobe. Where late spring frosts can be a problem (with apricots inparticular) summer pruning can result in a tree of a much moremanageable size. Some apricot lovers have now discovered thatwith enough summer pinching you can get a smaller tree, one thatis low enough to throw a plastic cover over on those cold springevenings when the branches are loaded with white blossoms, but alate frost threatens. But, take note: be sure to remove thefrost cover promptly when morning arrives. If a program ofsummer pinching is undertaken, the following winter’s dormantpruning needs will normally be minimal. However, once every fewyears it would still be a good idea to make a limited number oflarge cuts, cuts that remove considerable wood. This would bedone to encourage more vigorous new growth. The reason thiswould be needed now and then is because most deciduous fruittrees fruit on either first or second season’s wood. Dormantpruning would still be used to remove any dead wood,criss-crossing branches, and to shape the tree. If there is alarge branch that needs removing, the time to do that is alwaysin the dormant season. One word here about dormant pruning offruit trees: in mild winter USDA zones 8-10 it is best to doyour dormant pruning just after Christmas. In colder winterareas it is safest to delay dormant pruning until the worst ofthe winter’s cold has passed. Thus in a very cold zone 3, suchas in northern Minnesota, the best time to prune fruit treeswould be in March or early in April. But summer pruning,pinching, can be done all summer long. The results will pleaseyou and the tree both. So get out there, and pinch an inch. Thomas Leo Ogren is the author of five published books,including Allergy-free Gardening (Ten Speed Press), Safe Sex inthe Garden (Ten Speed Press), and, What the Experts May NOT TellYou About: Growing the Perfect Lawn (Time Warner Books). Visitwith Tom at his own website at www.allergyfree-gardening.com
About the author:Thomas Leo Ogren is the author of five published books,including Allergy-free Gardening (Ten Speed Press), Safe Sex inthe Garden (Ten Speed Press), and, What the Experts May NOT TellYou About: Growing the Perfect Lawn (Time Warner Books). Visitwith Tom at his own website at www.allergyfree-gardening.com
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