Tips For Pruning Apple Trees
If you have recently moved into a new home and have noticed one or several apple trees on your property, then you may be thrilled by the presence of such beautiful trees. Apple trees also produce fruit that you can enjoy, but only if you care for the trees properly. Pruning is one thing you need to do. Keep reading to understand how proper trimming can actually help your tree grow more fruit.
It Minimizes Alternate Bearing
Trees produce fruit as a way of spreading seeds. The fruit stores nutrients and helps with the transportation or dispersal of the seeds. The seeds sit inside the fruit and remain protected until they are able to grow. Since the fruit and seeds help to propagate more trees, seeds are produced in abundance. However, the fruit production process is quite draining on the tree. It uses many resources and diminishes stored nutrients and energy.
If a tree, like an apple variety, uses all of its energy to produce fruit, it may have few reserves to create fruit buds the following spring. The result is smaller and fewer apples the next year. This process is called alternative bearing, and it can happen every other year or every few years.
When apple trees bear a lot of fruit, you may be unable to enjoy all the apples. Also, when trees use too much of their stored energy, this can leave them susceptible to diseases and infections, like collar rot, black rot, or powdery mildew. To minimize diseases and also possible fruit waste, it is wise to prune tree yearly so they do not produce too many apples in a single year.
It Keeps Apples Large
Apple trees will produce fruit buds in the spring that eventually turn into seed bearing fruit. If you see an abundance of buds on your apple tree, then this is a sign that you will have a great deal of apples in the fall. However, this may not be a good thing if you want large and hearty apples. If you notice a great deal of buds, then the tree will try to produce one piece of fruit for each bud. The resources of the tree are spread out between each piece of fruit, and this can lead to an abundant amount of small apples.
Small apples have less taste than larger ones. This is due to the lower concentration of malic acid in them, so you may not want to enjoy the fruit your tree ends up producing. Also, the fruit becomes crowded when the tree produces too many apples, and this can make some of the branches heavy. Branches may then crack and break, especially if the winter weather has caused some damage.
It is wise to trim away some new growth before fruit buds form if you want larger apples. Trim branches in the winter or at the beginning of spring. Small branches should be released carefully with hand pruners, and pruning should occur each year as long as the tree is at least three to four years old. If the tree is not old enough, you will stunt its growth and end up with a full grown tree that is much smaller than it should be.
Only certain types of branches should be removed from an apple tree if you want to see fruit. If you are inexperienced when it comes to trimming, you may inadvertently remove all or most of the scaffolding branches. These are the ones that produce fruit. If you are unfamiliar with the appearance of these branches or the leading ones, contact a business such as Sherman Oaks Tree Service.