When do you prune or trim apple trees?

[cavey]

My rule of thumb is to wait until the snow isn't above my belt buckle anymore. 8-11" more on its way tonight!

The way its been snowing we will be able to prune the top of our trees with out ladders this year - just kick the snow and bend over and nip off whats sticking out!

 

[PoorSand]

The deer are now modernizing my younger orchards for me, converting them to the Tall Spindle system. All that I need to do this spring is convince the trees to move themselves closer together and I will be all set.

 

[bigbendmarine]

In North Florida so timeline's pushed quite a bit ahead of most others.

Pruned about 20 dolgo crabapples this weekend after a couple of ornamental crabs against our house started blooming this past week. Pruned all my muscadine and scuppernong vines as well.

Noticed driving to work today that bradford pears in the area are also starting to flower so will race to get kieffers done before the coming weekend is over.

 

[cavey]

The deer are now modernizing my younger orchards for me, converting them to the Tall Spindle system. All that I need to do this spring is convince the trees to move themselves closer together and I will be all set.

My nursery has a two foot rabbit wire rap around it or should I say it did have a two foot barrier for them..... They can hippity hop in at will right now; I got half of it dug around with the skid steer back to the dirt grade..... but I was getting stuck with the skid steer trying to do the 2nd half. :-(

 

[Barndog56]

Luckily my orchard is on open high ground, so the wind we get usually blows the snow right on through. The rabbits can't reach over the tops of my hardware screen yet.

 

[Lee Haakenson]

West central WI. I prune right before bud break. The only reason is its also a convenient time to spread some fertilizer. I can only convince my wife of so many trips to the land these days. She cant seem to figure out why I need to go "chainsawin" every other weekend from November til May!

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[g squared 23]

West central WI. I prune right before bud break. The only reason is its also a convenient time to spread some fertilizer. I can only convince my wife of so many trips to the land these days. She cant seem to figure out why I need to go "chainsawin" every other weekend from November til May!

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“You said this hunting thing was only 3 months per year!”

“Yes dear, but habitat management is a year round process.”

“[extended guilt trip].”


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[DLH]

I prune young small trees, where I am primarily working on forming a sound base for future growth, in the late winter. Most other pruning on larger, more mature trees I usually do in late summer. Invariably those are trees that require corrective pruning and removal of large dead or crossing limbs. Pruning in summer on large trees has less relative impact on the future growth of the tree and also reduces the likelyhood of the tree throwing large amounts of water sprouts the following year in response to the pruning.

I’ve seen some places mention summer pruning instead of dormant can reduce the vigor of a tree and potentially make them bear earlier because they put so much effort into pushing new growth after dormant pruning. Does anyone have any experience with this? The one down side was it’s harder to envision the shape you are after with leaves on. I was considering marking what I want to prune on my pear this year and do it in the summer. It puts on tons of water sprouts like you said if I do it early spring it’s roughly 13-14ft tall.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

I have trimmed my trees during all of the seasons. I am pretty sure the reason you dont want to do it in the summer is because of diseases into the open cut. But if there is damage, or an unruley branch that catches my eye, I trim it when I have time, and when I have something to prune it with. But I am pretty sure the best time to prune is in the winter before bud break. Doing so prior to bud break should make the tree want to produce more fruit that season.

 

[Jhoss]

This year I'm trying something new. I've got about half of my 60 trees pruned already. Started in December when there was no snow. Formerly, the rush to get them pruned and sprayed with dormant oil in the early spring (nighttime temps above freezing) was just too much work in too short of time. This topic is nothing new and the premise that made the most sense for me making this change was...I'll paraphrase, "if the commercial guys waited for the coldest part of winter to pass they would never get it done." Hope it works / no winter damage. (SE MICH) we've seen -15 once already this year.