You will be well familiar with the term ‘Pruning’ if you are new in tree growing world. It’s a very common term which is used mostly by veteran growers. My case was bit different because I was not familiar with this term even after several years of my entrance in tree growing world. It was not like I had not heard about ‘Pruning’, I heard about it lot but never asked someone what pruning actually means. I don’t know why I always felt very uncomfortable asking any one about this term. Now I think if I had asked about it earlier, it would have benefited my initial tree growing experience a lot. I was bit prideful to ask and that pride was the reason of my many great endeavors. Now I think I could have saved many disasters of my initial tree growing experience if I had just once asked someone about pruning.
Pruning, this term actually means cutting off un-needed and dead branches to ensure growth of flowers. If you don’t remove un-needed branches it will create a lot of un-balancing of energy between dead and alive tree branches. May be tree starts giving more energy to dead branch as compared to the branch which is bearing more fruit and desperately needs lot of energy. Moreover, pruning helps in keeping the tree in beautiful shape. All branches remain even and tree does not weighed down on one side. Remember, if you don’t prune the tree properly it can cause the tree to crook on one side forever!
Start pruning today:
If you are thinking that you will prune your tree after it will start giving fruits then you are wrong and making a big mistake. Your tree needs your attention all over the year no matter whether its fruit time or not. Always keep your tree even and uniform by doing proper pruning. If you do proper care and pruning of your fruit tree before it starts to give fruits, you will see the results will be immensely awesome. A man walking in the street can easily tell whether the tree has been pruned frequently or not by just looking at it once!
Always first look for those branches which are not alive any more or diseased. Of course it is not difficult to recognize which branches are not healthy. Such branches will not have any fruits and will be discolored or de-structured. Just chop off such branches as they are doing no good to your tree. Sometimes the dead or diseased branch does not look obvious but it will be obvious after some days when whole tree will be giving flowers except those branches.
What more you have to look for:
Also chop off the branch that is too close to other branches. If the end of the branch is right next to other branches, it can be dangerous for your tree as it can end up crowding each other out. In such case remove the smaller branch and let the longer branch grow openly. Do same if there is weigh balance problem with your tree. It is very natural that tree sometimes starts growing more branches on one side and become crooked in no time.
That’s all about the basic knowledge of pruning. These two are only the basic types of branches which should be pruned. If your tree is very old the branches which require pruning can be many. For the first 3 years of a tree’s expansion it requires pruning that follows more “formative” guidelines. Once your tree is well established you will need to use “regulatory” pruning to see it in the shape you like. You can make use of lots of pruning guides available in the library. Just pay a visit to your local library and you can pick any type of pruning book you want.
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