Pruning trees - how to prune fruit seedlings in spring

In order to get a stable and rich harvest, it is necessary to carry out timely and proper pruning of garden trees. If you leave the crown too thick, it will not be sufficiently ventilated and transmit light. Under such conditions, trees are most vulnerable to various microorganisms that cause disease. A weak and diseased plant will not be able to fully develop and bear fruit.

Pruning orchard trees - tips for beginner gardeners

Pruning fruit trees is a responsible matter; there are some nuances and rules here. For beginner gardeners, before proceeding with the procedure for trimming excess and diseased branches, you should familiarize yourself with these rules.

Crown formation

Types of pruning fruit trees

Removing unnecessary and weak branches has several tasks, depending on which pruning is divided into several types. Each of them has its own characteristics and consequences. There are forming, sanitary and anti-aging pruning.

Crown formation

First of all, pruning of trees is necessary for the correct formation of the crown, to prevent its excessive growth. As a result of the procedure, a strong skeleton is created, side branches begin to grow actively and the gardener receives more fruits.

If pruning is rarely or completely ignored, the crown reaches enormous dimensions, and the fruits are located in hard-to-reach places. Thinning of the crown is recommended to start from the next year after planting. Most often, gardeners choose two schemes: non-tiered and sparse-tiered.

Sanitary pruning of fruit trees - what you need to know

The annual fall pruning of sick or dry branches is called sanitary. It is carried out as follows:

1. Shoots are removed above the outer bud, the skeletal branch is cut into a ring.
2. The diseased and dried branch is cut with the capture of a healthy part.
3. A vertically located branch is cut obliquely.
4. After the procedure is completed, the wounds are necessarily lubricated with garden varieties or other means.

Regular sanitary treatment heals the plant and increases its fruitfulness. The tree lives for a long time, while significantly reducing the risk of various diseases of fruit crops.

The purpose of anti-aging trimming

Rejuvenating pruning is performed when there are too many old trees in the garden that have markedly decreased yields. The following procedure is recommended:

1. Inspect the crown, identify all dying, crossing, rubbing or growing in the center of the branch.
2. At the base of these branches find a strong fatty shoot.
3. Retreat 2 cm from the base of the shoot and cut the branch.
4. To process a place of a cut garden var.

If there are not one but several young shoots near the cut, the wound will heal faster.

Crop Types

Safety precautions for pruning fruit trees

Cutting trees in the garden requires compliance with safety rules:

• Do not allow children under the age of 18 to be trimmed and not allowed to the place of behavior.
• Wear protective gloves to prevent cuts or splinters, as well as helmets, goggles.
• Use a stepladder (not a ladder!) With wide enough steps. In order not to slip on the stairs, wear shoes with corrugated soles. Do not climb the stairs together.
• Do not use electrical appliances with damaged cables or wires.
• Do not book near electrical wires.
• Do not move from the stairs to the tree, nor work in the rain or immediately after it. Do not stand with one foot on the stairs and the other on the tree.
• Do not be under the tree during thinning.
• Monitor the serviceability of working tools, do not transfer them to each other, store in special bags or covers.
• To remove cut branches, use special hooks.

The choice of tools and equipment

When choosing tools for pruning, you should be guided by the advice of experienced professional gardeners:

• The tool should be comfortable in your hands.
• The hacksaw, pruning shears or grafting knife must have brightly colored parts so that they can easily be found in the grass.
• It is desirable that the equipment was equipped with special loops, so it can be hung on the wrist and not dropped during operation.
• In no case can you cut the branches with a rusty tool, otherwise the tree may die.

Secateurs

For the correct and high-quality pruning of garden trees, you will need tools:

• A bar knotter - useful if there is no way to climb the stairs.
• Hacksaw - it cuts branches with a large diameter. You can not use a chainsaw, the wounds made by it on a tree practically do not heal.
• Garden knife - convenient for cleaning finished sections, should be perfectly sharp.
• Secateurs are a convenient and safe tool for trimming small branches.

Fresh sections need to be processed. To do this, you need garden var, paint on linseed oil, Rannet paste or other similar means.

The technique saw, allowing not to injure a tree

When cutting large branches, a tree can be injured. To avoid this, the cut is made as follows:

1. They make an initial cut from below so that the branch does not break and does not tear off the bark from the tree.
2. Next, you need to cut the branch above the cut down.
3. After removing the branches, the saw cuts are aligned on the ring, the irregularities are cleaned with a knife and the wound is greased with paint or var.

Why is it better to contact professionals

At first glance, booking garden crops is a simple procedure that you can handle on your own. However, for an inexperienced person, there are certain risks in carrying it out: falling from a height, breaking off a heavy branch, the danger of a branch contacting an electric wire, working with a sharp tool. Therefore, if a novice gardener does not know how to prune the trees correctly, it is better to seek help from the arborists. These are specially trained people who own the correct cropping technique and all the skills necessary for this.

Features pruning fruit trees

Fruit trees are pruned in any season except winter: they sleep in the cold season. Trimming times vary by region. In the northern and central regions of Russia, shortening of branches is not carried out in autumn. In these places the cold comes early, and the trees do not have time to heal their wounds. Pruning in these regions is recommended to begin in the spring, after waiting for the plus temperature. The procedure must be completed before the buds open on the trees.

When and which trees in the garden can be pruned

In order not to harm the future crop, it is important to know when to prune a tree. The first in the garden to cut pears and apple trees, as these trees are characterized by frost resistance. Some fruit crops are recommended to be shortened only after the appearance of leaves on the branches, otherwise the saw cuts may become covered with fungal plaque. These include cherry plum, plum, apricot, cherries and cherries.

In some shrubs (for example, a climbing rose and lilac), flowers form on last year's shoot, so it is not recommended to prune them.

At what age should fruit trees be pruned

In summer, the branches are pruned in plants older than 3 years in order to improve the quality of the fruit. After this procedure, the rapid development of young shoots begins. The advantages of summer pruning include life-giving juice, thanks to which the wounds heal quickly.

In the south of the country, gardeners spend winter pruning at such trees to reduce the yield of young seedlings. After 3 years of fruiting, they are given a rest. First crop seeds and then stone fruits.

A tree that is over 10 years old is shown anti-aging pruning. It is done at any time of the year, but better in the spring. Forming spring pruning begins from the second year after planting.

Cutting seedlings by year

How to prune a seedling to get a bigger crop

When pruning a young seedling, its stem is first formed: all branches located at a distance of 40 cm from the ground are removed. Next, determine the main 3-4 strong branches, which will become the skeleton of the crown. All other branches are removed with a slice "under the ring."

Left branches are cut so that their ends are at the same level. They must develop evenly and equally. It is important to consider the location of the kidney near which the cut is made. If it is on the outside of the cut branch, the young shoot will grow in the same direction. If the bud is located on the inside, the branch will grow in the center of the crown.

How to prune peach and apricot

In relation to peach and apricot trees, all types of pruning are used, and they are made regularly in any season except winter. In cold regions, spring pruning begins after the appearance of the first leaves, when all diseased and dying branches are well identified.

The formation of the crown of peach and apricot begins in the second year of life of the tree. Prior to this period, only pinching a small apical part is allowed to stimulate new lateral shoots.

Step-by-step spring pruning algorithm:

1. A shtamb with a length of 50 cm is formed.
2. There are several skeletal branches that are located at an angle to the conductor and look in different directions. Two kidneys are left on them, the top should be on the outside.
3. The conductor is shortened to the upper side branch.
4. Remove all frozen silt broken branches.
5. In order to rejuvenate the peach, remove all branches that are 4 years old or more.

In summer, dead shoots are removed, as well as all new branches, directed vertically up or deep into the crown. If too many fruits are tied to thin shoots, the branches are shortened, and the ovaries are thinned out. Autumn pruning is to remove all remaining diseased and broken branches, as well as to shorten weak and poorly ripened shoots.

Peach and apricot are photophilous crops. If their crowns are too thick, not enough light enters the fruiting shoots. This affects the quantity and quality of the fruit. Regular thinning and shortening of the branches of these trees is the key to a stable and rich harvest.

Apricot pruning scheme

On the question of how to correctly prune a fruit tree so as not to harm it, many gardeners are guided by favorable and unfavorable days. According to the lunar calendar, pruning is preferably carried out on the new moon and on the waning moon. This takes into account the sign in which the moon is located. For pruning, a growing phase in a barren sign is suitable. Such signs include Aries, Aquarius, Leo, Scorpio, Virgo, Gemini and Sagittarius.

Timely implementation of all procedures for the care of fruit trees makes the garden truly flowering and fruitful. Pruning plays one of the most important roles in crop management. It not only allows you to get more fruits from trees, but also makes them healthy centenarians. These recommendations on the timing and rules of pruning will help novice gardeners not to harm garden crops.