PRUNING is an important part of creating healthy and productive fruit trees according to Clarrie Beckingham.
Mr Beckingham, who is a retired NSW Department of Primary Industries district horticulturalist, has given many demonstrations of pruning trees at the Mudgee Small Farm Field Days and to farmers across the district in his time, and said he was still keeping his hand in these days.
“Fruit trees complement a garden nicely; there’s a lot of satisfaction in caring for trees and ultimately enjoying the fruits of your labour,” he said.
“That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.” Mr Beckingham said perfecting a training system was the secret to success.
“It’s important when forming the framework for a young tree to know what pruning cuts to make in order to develop it into an easyto-prune tree,” he said.
Growers can choose from three popular training systems: the palmette, central leader and vase models. “The palmette is a useful training system and can be used for many deciduous fruit crops, particularly stone fruit, such as peaches and nectarines,” Mr Beckingham said.
“This system is highly productive and precocious and keeps the height and width of the tree to a minimum.
“This allows intensive growing in a reasonably small area and makes picking easier.” Mr Beckingham said the central leader model shared many advantages with the palmette, except wider row spacings were required.
This system was often used for trees that had a natural tendency to grow to a central leader, such as apples and pears.
He said the vase model was easy to achieve and suitable for most fruit tree varieties.
Things to be aware of, however, included the need for heavy pruning in the early years, which could delay production.
Also the vase model resulted in most fruit growing in the tops of the trees, requiring more ladder work.
The terms
- Lateral: A branch originating from the main scaffold or secondary branch.
- Scaffold branch: The permanent branch originating from the truck that forms the major branching or framework of the tree.
- Canopy development point: Upper area on the trunk where major scaffold branches originate.
- Leader: A dominant one-year-old lateral branch located on the leading end and including the growing top of a scaffold branch.
- Sucker: A shoot growing from the trunk or roots below ground.
- Water sprout: A vigorous upright shoot arising from latent or adventitious buds on the trunk or older branches.
Pruning equipment
- A pair of hand-held secateurs
- A pair of long-handled lopping shears
- A hand saw
- A sharpening stone
Safety
- Wear protective clothing and safety gear
- Eye wear can protect against renegade branches
- If a chainsaw is needed for pruning a mature fruit tree wear face and head protection
- As with any outdoor work, ensure you wear suitable clothing and strong, sturdy boots with good tread on the sole
- Sun protection is essential, but wide-brimmed hats can make visibility difficult when pruning so slap on sunscreen
The Tips
- Prune deciduous fruit trees in winter, while they remain dormant. Cherries, however, should be pruned in autumn and apricots at budswell in spring. This will minimise bacterial disease infection. Evergreen fruit trees, such as citrus varieties, may be pruned at other times if they require tree training or skeletonising.
- Choose a training system for your tree – vase, palmette or central leader – early to guide its growth, ensure ease of pruning, tree care, picking, and to maximise productivity.
- Research your training system before planting and then monitor the tree’s growth closely for the first three to four years of its life to gauge how it develops, how productive it is, and the quality and size of its fruit. Information about fruit tree pruning can be obtained from NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI).
- Cut with caution. Mr Beckingham said fruit trees were quite forgiving, as long as they weren’t suffering stress from pests, such as insects, weeds and disease, or a lack of moisture and nutrients.
How to vase train peaches and nectarines:
- Remove dead wood, branches that cross over and suckers from the base of the tree, as well as unwanted watershoots growing in the centre of the tree.
- Identify the leaders on the main fruit-bearing branches.
- Keep leaders roughly 50 to 60 centimetres apart around the top of the tree.
- Remove or shorten the competition below the leader for 20cm to 30cm. Continue down the scaffold branches and along secondaries by thinning out unwanted growth and spacing fruiting laterals every 15cm to 20cm, altering laterals on either side of the scaffold.
- When pruning lateral growth, leave a stub of a few millimetres. Dormant basal buds can then grow next season as replacement fruiting laterals.
- Prune leaders to roughly the same height to maintain tree symmetry, promote compact growth and ensure easy picking.
