SUMMER PRUNING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 January 1939, Page 9

SUMMER PRUNING

WHAT SHOULD EE DONE. Slimmer pruning of fruit trees and bushes is carried out to remove unnecessary growth which is blocking up the centre of the plants, thus preventing a free circulation of air, and also preventing the sun from getting in to ripen up the fruit-bearing wood or the spurs upon which the next season’s crop depends. In the case of black currants. which bear their fruit on the young wood, it is necessary to cut some of the old branches right out, and this can be done as soon as the fruit is picked. Those in or near the centre should be removed first. In the case of loganberries and raspberries, which bear their fruit on the ripened young

wood, that which has fruited can be cut right out and the young canes should also be reduced should too many develop. About five to seven are plenty on each stool. Gooseberries also develop a Jot of young wood in the centre of the bushes. This should be drasticallj' thinned or removed altogether, and tlie main branches should be tipped. Peaches trained against a wall or fence usually produce a lot of strong young shoots in the centre of the tree. These should have been rubbed out when young, but if this was not done they should be thinned out now, leaving, perhaps, one or two to take the place of old branches which may be cut out later on. Apples, if making a lot of young growth, can be summer pruned by cutting or breaking back the side shoots to two or three inches and breaking or cutting out the tips of the main branches. In warm, sunny districts, it is not advisable to reduce the foliage very much, if at all.