What Happens When You Prune a Fruit Tree That Is Bearing Fruit?

Pruning fruit trees encourages vitality and fruit production, but must be carefully executed.

Fruit trees should be pruned and trained on a regular basis to encourage fruit production and healthy growth. It is important to time pruning of fruit trees to maximize production and minimize damage.

Winter Pruning

Winter pruning is the most traditional pruning method. It's undertaken when trees are dormant -- with the idea of minimizing the loss of nutrients that flow to the cut surface with tree sap in summer months. Winter pruning usually involves making large cuts and removing the most recent growth.

Summer Pruning

Summer pruning has traditionally been considered minor, secondary pruning. However, fruit farmers are increasingly using summer pruning as part of a "training" regimen for trees. By training growing limbs in summer and removing small, unwanted new shoots, farmers minimize the number of large cuts they need to make on dormant winter trees. Summer-prune after the first new growth has hardened, when shoots are 3 to 4 inches long and preferably before fruits form.

Pruning Fruit-Bearing Branches

Pruning fruit tree branches during the growing season should be a last-ditch effort to save a tree or some other part of your landscape, as pruning can be harmful to the whole crop or the health of the tree itself. If, however, you find yourself with a bumper crop and limb breakage is a concern, a little pruning while the fruits are young and small may protect the overall structure of the tree. Keep cuts to a minimum and do not prune large limbs.

Before pruning, consider fruit thinning as an alternate possibility. Picking unripe fruit to free up nutrients for the remaining crop can result in larger, healthier fruits at the end of the season.

References

• John's Nursery: How to Prune Like a Pro
• North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service: Training and Pruning Fruit Trees
• University of California Cooperative Extension: Fruit Thinning to Increase Fruit Size and Maintain Healthy Trees

Resources

• Virginia Cooperative Extension: Physiology of Pruning Fruit Trees