Fruit trees only produce high-quality fruit if they are cut regularly. Many gardeners shy away from this work because they think it is too complicated. Admittedly, pruning fruit trees is not that easy. But you can learn to prune a fruit tree - and if theoretical explanations like in this article aren't enough for you: Many tree nurseries offer pruning courses in the winter months.
When and how do I prune a fruit tree correctly?
A successful fruit tree pruning should be carried out in the sapless period (autumn or late winter) and includes planting pruning, training pruning and maintenance pruning. The aim is to build an ideal tree crown and stimulate new fruit wood in order to harvest high-quality fruit.
When is the right time to cut the fruit tree?
Fruit trees should be cut during the sapless period, i.e. in autumn or late winter. A late cut between January and March has the advantage that, in particular, those that have been cut back heavily do not sprout again too vigorously - this has an immense influence on fruit formation. Fast-growing fruit trees put more energy into wood formation, but develop fewer fruits.
Plant cutting
This cut is made during planting and aims to create an ideal tree crown. This is a strong, light crown structure consisting of a trunk, leading branches and side branches. And this is how it works:
- First plant the tree.
- Now select three strong shoots that are conveniently distributed all around the trunk.
- For plums, plums and sour cherries it can also be four.
- These later leading branches should not be located at one point on the trunk,
- but be somewhat distributed along the trunk.
- You should also spring at as obtuse an angle as possible to the trunk.
- Branches that grow too steeply only produce a few fruits.
- Therefore, remove all strong, steep shoots from the crown.
- If one of the future leading branches is steeper than the other two, spread out.
- In addition, one or two weaker shoots remain in the young crown.
- These should be as horizontal as possible.
- Then shorten the three leading branches by at least a third to a half
- and always with an outward-facing eye.
- The central shoot, in turn, is cut back so much that it towers over the three leading branches by a hand's breadth.
- Again, cut above an outward-facing bud.
Educational Cut
In the coming late winter or early spring you should cut back the young tree crown again. This training step that follows is repeated until the crown is fully formed, i.e. for around five to eight years. And this is how you do it:
- Remove all competing shoots and shoots that are too close together.
- Shoots that have formed on the tops of the branches must also be removed directly at the attachment points.
- Tie the remaining newly formed shoots in a horizontal position using raffia (€6.00 at Amazon).
- Now cut back the extensions of the trunk and leading branches.
- However, do not shorten them as much as when planting.
- If the tree has only grown weakly, this step is not necessary.
After about three to four years after planting, you should also start training the side branches. About three side branches should be used for each leading branch, which grow slightly upwards at an angle and are subordinate to the leading branches in terms of their length. So-called fruit branches, on the other hand, are not cut back unless a tree has too many of them. After cutting, the tree should have the shape of a house roof or a flat pyramid.
Maintenance cut
Approximately three to five years after planting, the crown is fully formed; From this point on, all you need to do is keep them in order with the maintenance cut. The aim of this intervention is to stimulate new fruit wood. In addition, the crown must remain as light as possible so that diseases do not develop in the first place and you can harvest he althy, high-quality fruit. When making maintenance cuts, it is best to proceed as follows:
- Remove all diseased and dead branches and shoots.
- Now cut off all fruit branches that are more than three years old.
- Place the old fruit branches on existing young shoots.
- These should preferably grow diagonally outwards.
- Put out any young shoots that have developed along the stronger branches and are too close together.
- The remaining young shoots remain unpruned and they also develop into fruit wood.
Thinning out older trees
Many older fruit trees have not been pruned for years, with the result that their crowns are far too dense and the fruit wood inside the crown is missing. In such a case, during a rejuvenation cut, all branches that are too close together are first removed at the attachment points; you should give preference to cancerous or weak branches orthose that lie close to others. Older, very neglected crowns should not be thinned out all at once, otherwise a strong new shoot that can hardly be controlled (so-called “water shoots”) would develop on the remaining branches. It is better to cut such specimens in two to three weeks in a row, of course removing the particularly annoying parts first.
Tip
It is advisable to supplement the training pruning in the first few years (except in the year of planting) with an extra summer treatment in the months of July or August. All shoots that are unnecessary for the crown structure and that you would have to remove in winter anyway are cut away. With a summer cut, the crown development progresses more quickly.
