January 13, 2020

Pruning Apple Trees to Maximize Your Fruit Harvest

Well, old man winter is upon us, and if you are like me you just might need a great excuse to get out and enjoy the frigid majesty. One job that really must be done in the heart of winter is pruning apple trees, among other fruit trees.

When Do You Need To Prune?

Pruning is best when the trees are completely dormant; late winter/early spring (before budding). If you are having a very mild winter like us here in upstate New York, you should probably wait until mid to late February, when it has been around 0 – 20 degrees for several days straight. Your cuts will be cleaner and will cause very little trauma to our friendly trees.

Why Do You Need To Prune?

Your old abandoned trees are probably looking like giant shrubs with a pincushion of branches going in every direction. This causes your tree to spend way too much of its energy feeding unnecessary branches and leaves to produce any fruit!

Our apple trees on Thistle Downs Farm desperately need to be pruned

Pruning off all of these “suckers” will increase fruit size, promote better fruit development, increase the flavor of the fruit, develop the sweetness, and increase the disease and insect resistance. Thinning out the branches also allows better light penetration, which helps the apples grow and helps the trees dry off quicker during long protracted wet spells.

Reducing the tree height and thinning out undesirable branches also makes it easier to harvest the fruit.

Where to Start?

Buy yourself a nice bypass pruner. Bypass pruner are designed to cut dead or dormant wood and plant material. I do not recommend an anvil pruner or a chainsaw! ( Tried that once and don’t want to talk about it.)

Bypass pruners act more like scissors because there blades slide past each other. Anvil pruners on the other hand act more like a knife on a cutting board, pressing the blade down through the material.

I just take my bypass pruner over to my grinder, put a nice edge on them each time and then head out to the orchard. Trust me, this will save you so much grief.

I sharpen my bypass pruners on my grinder before each use

Which Branches Should You Prune?

In a nutshell, this is your objective. Cut out the dead branches, lower the height of the tree, and remove any branches that cross each other or seem to be growing too close to each other. If you can picture this, you will be fine and probably don’t need to read the rest of this article.

1. Prune out all dead, diseased, and broken branches.

2. Lower the height of the tree by removing large, upright growing scaffold branches. Up to 2 to 3 feet of growth can be removed in one year. If more of the top needs to be removed spread out the pruning over a couple of years.

Remove large, upright growing scaffolding branches like the one above. This will improve air circulation and light penetration within the apple tree

2-3 feet of branches can safely be removed from the tops of the apple trees as well to promote outward growth

3. Remove undesirable interior branches. Prune out the weakest of crossing limbs and closely growing parallel branches.

Thin out limbs that cross between other, stronger branches, as pictured above

Remove limbs that are not growing out, but growing toward the center. Try not to remove any branches larger than 8 inches in diameter.

Trim inward and upward facing branches or “suckers” right at the base with your pruner blade parallel to the main branch

Remove limbs that grow toward the center of the apple tree (Before & after)

4. Cutaway any low-hanging branches.

5. Trim away thin spindly growth to permit some light to penetrate the center of the tree when in leaf.

6. Prune apple trees once per year as required.

Fertilizing

After pruning your apple trees, it’s also really helpful to apply some fertilizer. I find that applying the fertilizers in the springtime just before a rain works beautifully. I use organic fertilizer combined with mulch. Or you can use compost in place of the mulch. I don’t get too scientific, if the product is designed for fruit trees it’s probably going to be just fine.

For larger trees, the fertilizer spikes work really well around the “drip-line”. That is the area where the rain drips off the canopy. I don’t mean to sound like the fertilizing step doesn’t really matter, because it will help your trees tremendously. I just don’t want to make it sound more complicated than it really is.

Taking a Thistle Downs pruning selfie and look what I got in the background!

Conclusion

Get outside, breathe the cold winter air, start pruning apple trees and you will warm up in no time. Watch your old tired trees magically come back to life when the weather gets warm. They will thank you in the summer with beautiful tasty apples that they are more than willing to share with you and their woodland friends. Enjoy your apples!

Love, Peace, and Light!

Terry

Thistle Downs Farm

APPLE CIDER VINEGAR DRINK RECIPE: HOW TO MAKE OLD-FASHIONED HEALTH TONIC

Filed Under: Gardening