Living in the deep south where our growing season (let’s define it by last frost to first frost) is on the order of 7.5 months, leaving a backyard fruit tree to it’s own devices quickly leads to a tree not friendly to fruit access or even fruit quantity. We all know this. Proper pruning in large part stimulates fruit trees to put on more fruiting wood.
So yes I prune late winter rather aggressively to promote more laterals and lower scaffolding like many recommend.
I also do summer pruning…sometimes more than once…because when a tree is happy in my neck of the woods (neck of the hood?) I generally get more growth than the textbook numbers for most varieties.
Why the post? Just a curiosity. I’ve included two different photos of the result of summer pruning. The first is on a Cot-n-Candy Aprium. This is the response I expect from a tree being pruned, much like a dormant pruning will do. You get the expected hormone change that activates the last handful of dormant buds on the branch.
The second photo is of a Lapins cherry that in my ignoring protocol for what has a shot of surviving and fruiting where I am I stubbornly am trying anyway.
Notice that at each leaf petiole it has new growth initiated. This behavior is what I expect to see in spring when the dormant buds have spent all the previous summer maturing to break in spring.
I am thinking the response of the lapins, which is planted in an open bottom (to the ground) 36" metal fire ring, went through a drought and is responding again like a new spring and not just from being pruned. The interesting thing is that those petioles are on this years growth. Yes I was watering both trees at the same timing, but perhaps the raised planting remained drier. We had a nice 3.46" rainfall about 9 days ago… Perhaps that was the trigger.
No question or conclusion really. I just was noticing the difference in the two trees new growth after early summer pruning and thought it interesting.
I do a daily walk through and pinch prune the new growth on my apple espalier. Each shoot pinched back sends forth two. It makes a very bushy dense foliage.
I’ve been looking for more specific guidelines for Deep South summer pruning as well. I’m trying to hold off until mid August but wondering if I should do some now and again then.
The season in my greenhouse is 10.5 months. I usually summer prune at least 4-6 times. But my trees are spaced 3x7ft. I’m summer pruning trees planted this spring. I’ll also be doing renewal pruning to some degree after the first crop, next year. That’s for stone fruits.
I can see many flower buds on apricot and pluot. Some on peach and nectarine. All planted in late winter this year.
From what I’ve read and seen, summer pruning’s only drawback is it removes some vigor from the tree…i.e. you are removing energy contained in the branch you have cut that won’t be put into the roots in fall for next years growth. You are also removing the future growth and production of that branch with the same result.
The plus of that is you push several lateral buds on the pruned branch so you get new leaf production for the tree to store in fall…it just takes a few weeks to start.
Since many of us are trying to limit the size of our fruit trees height wise this isn’t a huge issue for long growing season areas like us as we still get plenty of growth after pruning.
Additionally pushing lateral growth and larger branch angles produces more fruiting buds on most of our fruit trees.
The only drawbacks for summer pruning I’ve found is making sure to seal the pruning cuts so the heat and moisture doesn’t invite any pests or disease before the wound heals.
Also the new growth stimulated by the pruning needs to have time to harden off before the first freeze or you will get damage to those young branches.
I don’t know how many weeks it takes to harden off new growth so I’d imagine for any particular climate and tree variety there will be a date after which is taking a risk for late pruning.
