Continuing the discussion from Carmine Jewell Cherry Yields increasing with age:
Any tips or photos of pruning Carmine Jewel? Mine is only 6 ft tall but I can see it produces as many cherries as I need, so I’m thinking about controlling the size, reducing brown rot and making it easy to pick.
I’m probably not the best to respond here, given my obvious fail in this regard…
I’ll take a stab at it anyway, just in hopes that maybe others will add to it.
I don’t assume there’s a method that would be considered the end-all as far as pruning techniques on bush cherries. Mine are all single trunk bushes, and I think while Dr. Bors recommends “renewal pruning…” I just always assumed that his comment probably pertained to those specimens that come up as multi-trunks at ground level, but again that’s an assumption.
I know that even though I lopped off 3-4’ of the height that it seemed to invigorate them so that when spring arrived they added new growth like always. At least it wasn’t new growth on top of 3-4’ had I not done that…
The U of S info talks about how it may be a good thing to open up the centers to allow for air flow etc., and I did that but I’m now seeing a lot of new interior growth with shoots coming in to replace those I pruned out. This is a good thing in my mind, as I feel like by my taking out the interior branches, those branches carrying most of the fruit had nothing to intertwine with, and they collapsed under the weight of the fruit.
But it was a learning event, and I’ll take less out next time. But the real positive takeaway is that I had been having concerns about the bare/sparse interiors this year. There just wasn’t a lot of foliage inside the bushes. This is proving to be my “renewal” pruning, as the new replacement branches coming in have lots of leaves, which I intend to allow to fill in the interior some. And maybe this is exactly what Dr. Bors was talking about all along 
I’ll have foliage back in there, and I’ll be making less drastic pruning cuts on a going forward basis, while still doing all I can in increase air flow.
But I think you’re right on track to think about getting a grip on these monsters before it gets too out of control.