Branches only leafing out near tip

General Fruit Growing
1

My befuddling combo cherry is in pretty bad shape. There is not much branching on the scaffolds and on 3 of the varieties the leaves are only growing out near the tips of the branches. Lapins in particular bloomed in march but the most of the blooms were on the branch tips. The blooms got frosted out and the only thing remaining on the branch is a small cluster of young leaves near the tip. The branch is still alive but with the lack of leaves you’d think its dead. I made a mistake in not cutting last years growth back by a third to encourage branching. If I cut the branch back now I’ll lose all leaves on the branch. Will this encourage the lower buds to leaf out or is it too late to do this since the tree is out of dormancy?

Montmorency is doing this as well on the same tree.

2

Speed,

If you think the tree is still alive and healthy top growth, this maybe a good opportunity to prune all the branches back hard to start some new scaffolds.

Tony

3

Thanks Tony. Since it’s so early in the season you think cutting them back will spur new growth? I’ve always thought dormant pruning is what spurred growth. I wondered if since the tree had already came out of dormancy a cut would react like more of a thinning cut and not push growth?

4

I’m not sure how bad your trees are from the description. Trees can start leafing from the tips but then the other parts will catch up. But sometimes the tree is really weak and only the tips are leafing for that reason. If its the latter you don’t want to prune at all as it may kill the tree – let it fully leaf out and start making some good carbs and get going, and then you can consider pruning (in a month or so).

1 Like
5

Agreed this is where I"m at with two of my cherries this year. I’m just gonna try giving them extra fertilizer. Making sure they don’t get too little water when we don’t get rain for a week or two. And then just hope for the best.

I had one tree last year that after it woke up from dormacy I realized it’s branch structure was doomed. So I took what I think was a three year old tree at the time and did a heading cut about 2.5 to 3 feet up. The tree has done nicely and now has a much better structure. But that was a healthy tree that I attempted that on. A weak tree struggling probable won’t work.