some years i have to use the snowmobile to prune in early may as we still have 4ft snowbanks in the yard . if i wait till i can walk thru them, my currants, elderberry, honey berry , seaberry, aronia and rasp. all would be budding . i too don’t like making wounds when -20f or colder is just around the corner. more for desiccation reasons than disease or rot.
I think it depends on what fruit trees we are talking about. I personally do not prune peach or cherry trees in late fall or winter in my zone. People prune apples in the middle of winter when they have time since early spring is a very busy time.
I can afford to wait until spring to prune my trees…
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It depends on the fruit and why I’m pruning. Of all my fruit, muscadines require the most pruning and it’s generally best to prune them in late February or early March here in S. Georgia (early spring but before bud break in muscadines). Any pruning I do on plums happens after bud break. I tend to prune pears and blueberries and huckleberries in winter.
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I often wait until late winter in order to get scion wood.
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I like dormant season pruning as I can see the structure better. So I prune for structure while dormant, and prune for height in the summer. I’m managing multi-grafted trees, so I want some order here, and not to let one cultivar try to dominate the others, and try to prune for growth on the slow growers. Winter pruning stimulates vigor more than summer, so that is when you would want to prune weak growers. So no one answer. When and how you prune is more a function what you want to accomplish.
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I prune while I’m collecting scionwood. Typically in February. I’ve also been summer pruning to help keep my trees small.
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Question: I have a 3rd leaf ark black that has fireblight in the trunk. The tree is a lost cause. I need to cut it back to a stump to regrow next year. The tree is just starting to drop leaves. If I cut it now will that hurt the tree or should I wait until all leaves are down? I don’t want to wait any longer than necessary due to fb actively oozing now.
i had a yellow transparent with the same problem. unfourtunitly even if you cut it to the ground theres enough contamination in the area that it will reinfect. i had to pull mine entirely.
With your zone, I will prune anytime esp. pruning off diseased limb. The sooner, the better so the disease won’t travel down and kill the whole tree.You may only have a stump left but it can be a rootstock.
Thanks. I just wasn’t sure if chopping before leaf drop would rob the roots of too much energy.
At this point it’s done for the year, chop away.
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She’s coming down tomorrow. That hurts. It’s a really nicely formed tall spindle and spurred up pretty well. Should have known better than to wait and see what happens to an apparently inactive fb canker. It woke back up after one year of no ooze and came back with a vengeance. I may graft it over with yates. ark black has been just ok. @scottfsmith how is your yates as a fresh eating apple?
Cornell recommends pruning peaches after they start growth in spring to reduce chances of getting canker- as Drew said, MSU suggests pruning cherries in summer after cropping for same reason. In very cold regions pruning done immediately before extreme cold can cause injury around the cuts- it takes a couple weeks for wounds to harden off, apparently. Around here (Hudson Valley, NY) commercial growers sometimes prune apples immediately after harvest. Old apple tree can be pruned any time, any season as long as it doesn’t drop down below -25 F shortly afterwards (according to the lit- I assume there are varietal differences in tolerance). Younger trees are more tender. Spring dormant pruning is fine for most species that you are trying to get bigger, as it is the least dwarfing of safe times (in the north) to prune. I prune most species all summer long once trees have filled their space. The order of tolerance that growers around here abide by as far as cold temps are, apples first, pears second, then stone fruit.
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This year I had to pick them early due to an early freeze. I’m not sure how they will ripen up, I had one earlier today and it has a long ways to go. Last year I had some ripe ones which were very tasty. I think of you it should be a really good apple, your season is longer than mine. They are very small by modern apple standards, that rules them out for many people.
I ate one of Scott’s Yates a month ago and enjoyed it even then.
Bee Tee Dub: I like small apples. Less of a commitment. And I find small apples are often the sweetest, best textured etc.
I have my yard man coming over this Feb to help me prune. Since my husband is ot of commission I need his help and that of his daughter! My trees are all coming back down to 8-9 feet tall. If you want scionwood you will have to come and get it, my life is too complicated to ship. Sorry. Great trees!
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I’m trying to keep most of my trees 7-8’. They are easier for me to deal with even if I need to do more pruning.
Yes me too. It’s been 5 or 6 years now and it’s working great. Th trees look fantastic and it wasn’t that hard to keep them small. The vigor of young trees is waning in my trees, so it seems even easier. I usually do 2 summer pruning sessions. I only needed one this year. They had a heavy load of fruit, all of them, and that seemed to slow growth. I have to thin more, although the quality of the fruit was amazing even over cropped. I don’t want to break any branches, some trees handled the load better than others. Dapple Dandy didn’t move. Arctic Glo same thing. They are very strong trees.
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That is good news. My apples and pears seem to escape most of the fruit killing frost but the plums get wiped out sometimes. Time will tell how much pruning will be required the years there are no fruit to hold them back. I’m bending down the limbs on all my fruit trees hoping this also slows them down.
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The deed is done. I chopped it down to a stump yesterday morning. I cut way below any discolored wood. Today it is weeping clear fluid from the cut surface. Is that normal? I’ve never seen that before when doing pruning.