Can You Prune Apple Trees in the Winter?

Apple trees need careful training and pruning to produce abundant fruit.

Having an apple tree in your yard promises to provide a wealth of fruit for family and friends. Apple trees need regular maintenance and prevention of diseases and pests to produce an abundance of healthy fruit. Training and pruning of your apple tree is an important part of every maintenance program for fruit trees to encourage good tree shape and increase fruit yield. Prune apple trees in either summer or winter.

Winter Pruning

Late winter is the best time to prune apple trees. Wait until all leaves have dropped from the tree, and avoid pruning during or just after extreme cold temperatures. If you have a large number of apple trees, delay pruning younger trees until last to avoid damage from late frosts. Do winter pruning, also called dormant pruning, carefully, as trees will use their vigor to restore growth instead of producing fruit.

Summer Pruning

Though winter is the best time to prune, if your pruning efforts are delayed, you can still prune in summer without worrying that the pruning will stunt the growth of the tree. Limit summer pruning to the upright, vigorous current season's growth.

Pruning Basics

Pruning is done year-by-year, building on the structure produced by previous years' work. You should have only one central trunk. Branches coming from the central trunk should produce a whorl around the trunk. Prune to leave 18 to 24 inches between these whorls. Remove those branches that have crotches with less than 60-degree angles. Leave enough space for branches laterally to allow their growth in diameter without crowding. Stand back to judge whether the basic shape of the tree follows a cone-shape, with longer branches at the bottom and shorter ones at the top. Remove small, unneeded side shoots. Cut top branches as needed to prevent overgrowth that will produce too much shade over the rest of the tree.

Pruning & Fruit Production

Pruning always delays fruit production on young trees and reduces fruit yield on mature trees. It also stimulates vegetative growth at the expense of bud production. Of course, pruning also remove branches where buds and fruit can form, so prune only enough to promote the correct shaping of the tree and removal of dead or damaged branches. Pruning does allow better distribution of sunlight to all parts of the tree, which will increase the yield of fruit.

References

• North Carolina State University; Training & Pruning Fruit Trees; Michael L. Parker
• Virginia Tech University; Training & Pruning Apple Trees; Richard P. Marini; May 1, 2009
• About Apple Trees: How to Prune an Apple Tree