SUMMER PRUNING OF FRUIT TREES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 276, 11 February 1928, Page 26

SUMMER PRUNING OF FRUIT TREES

“Spare the knife and spoil the tree,” might well be the fruitgrowers’ motto. Hardy fruit trees and bushes always make an abundance of growth during the summer months, even while the fruit is still on the trees. This growth is essential, as upon it depends next year’s crop. Usually, however, a plant will make m6re growth than is needed and it is necessary to summer prune in order to reduce the formation of sappy growth, to encourage the formation of fruit spurs, and to allow free access of sun and air to the centre of the tree. Apples, pears and plums should have ingrowing shoots cut away, as well as any dead or diseased wood. Take away al weakly side shoots and shorten strong ones to about four leaves, allowing the leading branches to remain until autumn. Note trees that are growing too strongly and root prune them in autumn. A few varieties of apples, and pears, fruit chiefly on the ends of the shoots, and their summer pruning should be limited to thinning out weak or overcrowded shoots. Cherries bear their fruit on spurs, and the less the wood of one year’s growth and upwards is pruned the better, for fear of setting up gummosis—a bleeding of gum from the wound, which causes much injury.