Production Pruning

If you have fruit and nut trees, you can prune those trees to improve both the quantity and quality of your crop, or you might eliminate production altogether.

Lateral spur buds of almond

Normal pruning

Normal annual pruning involves removing dead, diseased, and rubbing branches. It also means training trees for shape, size, structure, and air flow. This is normally done while trees are dormant, in winter. There is also renewal pruning, done in autumn, which stimulates new growth the following spring. But, did you know that you can also prune for better fruit production? It’s true!

How fruit happens

Fruit and nut trees produce buds. When those buds are fertilized, they can grow into fruit or nuts. [Assuming the tree of healthy enough and old enough.] But some trees produce fruit on new growth, while others produce fruit on old growth. If you keep cutting off productive wood, you won’t have much of a crop.

​Where do trees produce fruit?

Depending on the species, trees produce fruit either on long shoots or on stubby spurs. That fruit can be arranged laterally, along the sides, or at the terminal end. Take a look at the chart below for information about your trees.

This may seem like too much information to be useful, but let’s walk through a few examples together, so you can see how to better prune your trees.

Almonds

You can see that almond trees produce the majority of their fruit on lateral spurs, and some fruit along lateral shoots. You will also see that each spur is good for 5 years, that very little pruning is needed, and that almond trees are best trained in the open center system. So, what does all this mean to the owner of an almond tree?

First, snipping the tips off of anything on an almond tree won’t harm nut production. Of course, if you snip too much, the tree will have to put energy into healing, rather than filling your hopper with delicious almonds. The open center system is exactly what it sounds like - the center of the tree is left clear of major branches in the middle, creating a bowl shape which allows for plenty of sunlight and air to move through. ​

​Apples

Looking at the information for apples, you can see that snipping off the ends of all the spurs would leave you without much of an apple crop, but cutting off the ends of long shoots would only have a very slight impact.

​Persimmons

Now look at persimmons. All of the fruit production occurs on long shoots of new wood. Cutting out all of your new growth would hamper fruit production. The same is true for quince. Figs are produced on new wood and one-year old shoots.

Terminal shoot bud of fig

Generally speaking, citrus trees do not need to be pruned to improve fruit production.

If you sort the chart by location of major fruiting buds, you have:

•     Lateral long shoots — fig, nectarine, peach, persimmon, and quince
•     Terminal long shoots — young walnut
•     Lateral spurs - almond, apricot, cherry, and plum
•     Terminal spurs — apple, pear, and mature walnut

Armed with this information, go outside, sanitized pruners in hand, and see where you can prune your fruit and nut trees for improved overall health and a significant increase in production!