22/01/2014
Now is the best time for fruit tree pruning!
Although winter is a great time to prune all your trees, fruit trees have the most to gain by winter pruning. In spring all the broadleaf trees are expending much stored energy to make leaves. So as the days get longer and the angle of the sun changes they are able to make enough energy to fill the reserves and put on new growth. Some trees in spring and summer will also make flowers and pollen, some will make both. Fruit trees of course will also make fruit, large sweet fruit that require a lot of simple sugars. So all deciduous trees are busy in spring and summer, fruit trees are particularly busy. Winter is the time to relax, maybe grow some roots, enjoy all that refreshing rain we usually get. It is also a great time for a prune. The tree can focus its energy into healing wounds made by pruning and defending any attacks by disease or insect. Speaking of pests, they too are less active in winter, making it not as easy to spread a parasite during the pruning process. The tree is also helped by not wasting energy on growing leafs, flowers, or buds on part of the tree that will be cut off before harvest. It is important for many reasons to prune well after all the leaves have dropped and before the buds even begin to swell in spring. This is why the actual dates change from year to year but January and February are safe bets.
I hope to include more information about fruit tree care in the next month. Feel free to contact me with any questions about your fruit trees, whether they have been planted in the last couple of years and you want to know about maintenance, or you have an older fruit tree that needs a lot of love. As spring approaches I will talk about one of my favorite topics; planting fruit trees.
