About Pruning Suckers on Fruit Trees

Fruit trees are a wonderful addition to your landscape. Not only do they provide early spring color with their many fragrant blossoms, but they also provide delicious and healthy snacks for your family. However, to keep your fruit tree healthy and producing well year after year, you need to pay attention to your annual pruning. Different types of fruit trees have different requirements to keep them in top shape, but all need to be pruned and inspected annually.

Expert Insight

Let's start with some pruning basics. Different fruit trees require different considerations when pruning the suckers or live growth, but all have some common needs. First, any branch that is diseased or entirely dead should be removed. These can only serve to infect the rest of the tree or may be subject to breaking and damaging healthy fruit-bearing branches as they fall. Second, look for branches that cross one another or form a thick mesh. These types of formation will catch snow in the winter which can build up and add enough weight to break healthy branches, as well. These crossing branches should be removed. While you're getting up close and personal with the tree for pruning you should also take a few minutes to examine the tree for any signs of insect damage or disease. Left unchecked either of these can damage or kill the tree over time and combining this check with your annual pruning helps make sure that it doesn't get lost in the shuffle of fall landscape maintenance activities.

Function

When pruning apple trees, your goal is to leave the strongest and highest-yielding branches for the following season and remove branches that are likely to lead to structural problems. Look at the new growth and decide whether it's growing in a direction that is likely to cause problems down the road. If so then, consider it for pruning. With apples though, you want to leave as much of the young growth as possible while providing shaping and thinning. Unless you're using the espalier technique of training the tree branches along a trellis or wall, no more than 20-25% of the new growth should be pruned. If you cut more than this you can reduce the tree's yield for years since the most productive growth on an apple tree is two-three years old.

Types

When pruning a plum tree, follow the general directions given for all fruit trees. Provide light shaping and remove dead, diseased or crossing branches. In addition, plums will grow long thin branches each year. These switch-like limbs can be pruned heavily. Again as you remove them, think about the future growth of the tree. Fifty percent or more of these beanches can be pruned off each year. Remember that, like apples, most of the fruit production on a plum tree comes from second and third year growth.

Identification

For all other trees, pruning should follow the model of either the apple or the plum tree instructions from the preceding paragraphs according to the following list:

Like apple trees:
• Pear trees

Like plum trees:
• Peaches
• Apricots
• Nectarines

Benefits

Keeping your fruit trees well-pruned takes just a few minutes to learn, but can save you years of trouble. Pruning and annual inspection can reduce the chances of your trees contracting diseases or being seriously damaged by insect pests. It will also make sure you get plenty of beautiful spring blossoms that turn into baskets of fruit every year.