About Dormant Fruit Trees

After fruit trees have produced a bountiful harvest in the fall, they go into a dormant period. "Dormant" means that the tree's activity slows to the point that it looks inactive. Decreases in photosynthesis occur and growth for the year effectively stops. When cooler temperatures signal to the tree that it's time to shut down, you can take some steps to help your dormant fruit tree survive through the winter and emerge healthy and ready in the spring.

Effects

With the onset of cooler weather, a fruit tree will begin the process of going dormant. The first and most obvious sign is that the leaves turn from green to an autumn color and then fall off. Sap movement slows down as well. While the tree looks lifeless, it is still taking in water and nutrients, just at a much slower and reduced rate. Root and branch growth essentially stops for the dormant period.

Prevention/Solution

When a fruit tree goes dormant, it's the perfect time for destructive insects to move in and settle down for the winter. These pests will burrow in and then go into an overwintering state, where they too will go dormant and await the spring to start to actively destroy the fruit tree. Many gardeners recommend using a fruit tree's dormant period to spray for these pests. Applying pesticides, known as dormant spray, at this time kills them when they are most vulnerable--inactive and unable to hide in leafy foliage. Administering a dormant spray to fruit trees ensures that there are fewer pest and disease problems when spring comes around.

Benefits

When fruit trees go dormant and the sap slows down, it's a fine time to prune back the trees. Pruning branches during the dormant time will harm the tree the least and is easier to do than if the tree were full of thick leafy branches. During a fruit tree's dormant period, trim off any diseased, dead or overlapping branches. This will strengthen the tree and allow new spring growth to start unhindered. Also, it prepares the tree for heavy winter storms by eliminating branches that may not be structurally sound enough to support snow or ice.

Geography

Many fruit trees that grow in subtropical locations have a hard time going into a dormant state because of balmy year-round temperatures. In states like Texas and Florida, citrus trees rarely go dormant for long. Unless the ground temperature falls below 50 degrees F, the root system will not become inactive. Fruit trees do need a period of dormancy, but citrus fruit trees thrive with just a few days or weeks of dormancy in the winter and the warm weather quickly breaks a dormant state in citrus fruit trees.

Types

Some of the more common kinds of fruit trees that experience a period of dormancy are apples, apricots, cherries, figs, peaches, nectarines, pears, persimmon and plums.

Resources

• What to do when trees don't go dormant