Your
YARD AND GARDEN

Annual pruning is important throughout the life of any fruit tree. While the tree is young, annual pruning is needed to develop the desired tree structure, which varies between apples, pears, peaches and cherries. As the tree grows older, annual pruning is necessary to keep the tree productive and to prevent it from becoming too large and too dense.

Of course, anyone will tell you that a home orchard isn't really as economical as visiting a commercial orchard or grocery store. Weekly sprays, annual prunings and controlling deer, rabbits and mice are yearly costs. But there is nothing as satisfying as picking your own ripe peach, biting into it and having juice dribble down your chin.

Dave Robson

Severe pruning of young trees tends to keep them from being productive and may delay the start of bearing. Your main objective should be to develop a well-shaped, structurally strong tree. As the tree gets older, the goal is to keep it producing flower buds and fruit spurs.

Light pruning may be done any time of the year, but heavy pruning usually should be limited to the latter part of the dormant season, preferably from Feb. 1 to April 1. The following pruning rules apply to all fruit trees:

• Always remove dead and broken branches.

• Always remove diseased branches or the diseased part of branches.

• Remove watersprouts. These are rapidly growing young shoots arising from the trunk or scaffold branches. They grow straight upward, frequently without branching.

• The most rapid growth of any plant is vertical. However, vertical growth seldom produces flower buds. Horizontal growth produces more flower buds, but produces more watersprouts, too. So, you need something in-between, which is why we strive for limbs at 30 to 60 degrees.

• Remove suckers. These are shoots arising from the roots or from the trunk at or below the ground line. Remove them as low as possible.

• If one branch grows into another branch or rubs another branch, remove the least desirable branch.

• Eliminate upright v-branching. If two branches of about equal size form a narrow V, eliminate one.

• Remove weak, slow-growing, drooping, nonproductive branches.

• Prune out branches or parts of branches that touch the ground.

• Avoid pruning pears. You only increase the chances of fireblight diseases. Pruning for the first two reasons is about all you do.

• Apples are best pruned during dormancy. Peaches and nectarines are best pruned after they flower. Apples produce fruit on two-year or older wood. Pruning last year's growth won't remove fruit buds or spurs. Peaches and nectarines, on the other hand, produce flowers only on last year's growth. If you start pruning it before seeing if the flower buds survived the winter, you may be pruning your crop.

Pruning on peaches should stimulate as much new wood as possible. Trees are pruned more toward an open-center format, allowing light into the center of the plant to encourage growth.

David Robson is an Extension Educator, Horticulture, at the Springfield Extension Center, Cooperative Extension Service, University of Illinois. You can write to Robson in care of Illinois Country Living, P.O. Box 3787, Springfield, IL 62708. Telephone: (217)782-6515. E-Mail: robsond@idea.ag.uiuc.edu

16 ILLINOIS COUNTRY LIVING FEBRUARY 1997