Pruning Fruit Trees

My neighbors have several apple trees and a pear tree. Every year they set a ton of fruit, but it's usually pretty small. I don't think the trees have been pruned for a long time.

Brad Bergefurd is an extension horticulture educator at Ohio State University. He says harvesting quality tree fruit depends a lot on how you harvest sunlight. Late winter is the best time to take a step back, look at the tree, and make some pruning decisions.

"Look wherever the sunlight may not be penetrating down into that canopy of that tree. That's usually where we run into the most problems," says Bergefurd. "The whole canopy gets too thick and the sunlight does not get to the center of the tree, therefore our fruit production is reduced, the blooms are reduced, and basically it turns into a shade tree and that is not what we want for our tree fruit production."

 Bergefurd says a common mistake he notices is that growers don't make pruning cuts early enough in the young stage of that tree's growth.

As soon as the tree is in the ground, he recommends a heading cut to establish the canopy system. Lateral cuts will remove any damaged limbs. In the following years, you'll make thinning cuts.

"Thinning cuts involve removing entire limbs that maybe are rubbing against each other, that are competing with other limbs," he says. "The whole thing we're trying to do with a thinning cut is trying to open up that canopy for better sunlight penetration, better wind penetration, better spray penetration, and just to maintain the overall fruitfulness of the canopy's interior."

You'll remove limbs that are productive. But Bergefurd says trees that aren't pruned can over-produce, and you'll end up with a lot of small, non-marketable fruit. Do most of the pruning in the top of the tree so most of the lower branches are exposed to sunlight.