I’ve been thinking that the important thing about pruning stone fruit in general is to have a dry, preferably hot spell.
Is that right? Or is late winter better?
I’d appreciate any rough guidelines here.
I do it in the late Winter/early Spring for shaping the tree and there are no leaves,the branches are easier to see.
Then about 2-3 times during the growing season(s) to shorten the tall stuff.bb
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That probably depends on location. I can only speak for the northeast, where stonefruit are usually pruned in very early spring after fear of extreme cold is over. However, most of this is based on peaches, I believe. E. Plums may be tougher.
Peaches and nects are the only fruit type that have suffered damage after pruning from a sudden steep drop in temps in my many years of experience. However, I would also be cautious about J. plums.
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Thank you! Late winter/early spring it is.
The dry spell idea probably depends on whether canker is an issue in your orchard. Most orchards I manage it is not- it seems trees that aren’t growing vigorously are most susceptible. I could see the possibility of pruning before a dry spell for peaches and cherries. MSU suggests only pruning cherries in full leaf to help prevent canker.
I don’t have any canker but I see a fair amount of black knot on wild cherry around here.
Black knot doesn’t influence my pruning times- I’ve never read of any guidelines about pruning to reduce black knot pressure only on when to prune it out, which I ignore. I try to prune it out the moment I see it and that’s the only thing that works consistently for me. The exception is black knot I discover in fall. That gets cut out early the following spring before the fungus becomes active.
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Plums are very tolerant, the best time to prune them is when you are thinking about it and they are dormant, waiting for an optimal time can easily mean it doesn’t get done. I don’t like pruning after they start growing in the spring, seems to shut down all growth for weeks, then water sprouts shoot up and fruit seems smaller. So unless your situation is special (bad silver leaf) do it when you can.
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I would fear for some of the red fleshed Japanese types and also the less hardy Santa Rosa types including SR itself. They tend to suffer cambium injury in my weather anyway, I would think that pruning before sudden drops in temp would contribute to the problem
We had some Santa Rosa’s they lived long enough to give a few crops then died, I am sure that was not from pruning. We have branch death and tree death here, but to blame them on pruning is unfounded. For the tree to respond to injury the temps need to be in the 50’s or 60’s after they are dormant 30’s or 40’s are to cold. These temps in themselves are enough to cause the cambium damage if quickly drop to sub freezing. Thirties and 40’s are enough to start un-harding the trees to cold, so drops to the teens or below can also cause damage. Trees see alot of “physical damage” in the winter due to wind, snow etc, just like they do in the summer. If this caused them to prematurely come out of dormancy their hardniess would be much lower
Why ignore it in fall? Is it a matter of hardiness? I just saw some this past weekend on some on a Euro plum and meant to cut it out, but haven’t gotten to it yet. Too many figs to protect before the 14-15F lows which are coming on Wednesday and Thursday nights…
Yes, I am concerned about hardiness. I have suffered injury from opening large wounds in J. plums by pruning in late winter. I can’t know if the wounds contributed but it seemed to. This is not a well studied issue and Eric of Plumhill farm has a different opinion.
With apples, wounds harden after 2 or 3 weeks, and temps have to be extremely low to cause injury- for mature trees probably below -20F. For stonefruit, I’m sure we can get cambium damage in the single digits as a result of wounds. I don’t know how long those wounds take to harden off. I don’t even know how cold it needs to get in the context of even sudden drops into hard frosts in early fall.
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OK thanks- I can probably defer more stonefruit pruning to spring. There is still plenty to be done. After the figs are protected, I can get back to hardy kiwi pruning. In the spring, they bleed too much, so I’m planning to do some more winter pruning to see if I can get a few out of control ones into a manageable form.
Incidentally, the bleeding is supposed to be harmless.
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I’ve seen some places say that. But, the few times I’ve made any cuts late, it was practically a river coming out and I get pretty squeamish about that. Especially so, since there are so many cuts which need to be made. Oregon State says they can be pruned in December to avoid the sap loss (though they say to not be too concerned about it). Given how much else I have to do in the spring, I should handle anything I can in fall/winter.
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