How to Get Max Flavor From Fruit Trees: A Pro Gardener’s Top Tips
The secret to great-tasting fruit is pruning! Cut back fruit tree branches annually to create short, productive, and healthy specimens. Your orchard will look its best while the trees produce bushels of fresh fruit. Learn how to prune your young saplings alongside Epic Gardener Jacques Lyakov!
Contents
Fruit trees may seem difficult to prune, but they’re easy to tackle if you know the right tricks. Pruning fruit trees ensures max flavor and yield. A few basic guidelines will help you no matter what type of tree you’re pruning. We’ll cover these basics before diving into specific guidelines for peaches, pears, plums, figs, and apples.
How to prune a tree depends on its age, habit, and health. This guide works well for young saplings, though more extensive work is necessary for overgrown specimens. Regular pruning keeps trees at a reasonable size so you never have to hack them back.
The ideal time to prune fruit trees is late winter through early spring, from January through March. Most species are dormant and their open wounds won’t bleed sap. Avoid extensive cuts during the growing season, as they invite pests and diseases to your tender saplings.
Pruning Is Necessary!
Don’t be afraid! Pruning is necessary for great-tasting fruit. Without pruning, most fruiting specimens would grow large, ungainly, and weak. They’d have long, spindly branches with little to no fruit, and what fruit they would have wouldn’t taste good.
Though max flavor and short stature are the two main reasons for pruning, there are other possible reasons for making cuts on your fruit trees. Here are some others:
- To repair overgrown trees
- To increase light levels and air circulation
- To encourage prolific yields
- To create strong branches that support fruit
- To maintain a healthy specimen
A year or two of missed prunings can lead to gigantic trees! Ensure you tackle them annually in late winter or early spring.
It’s All About the Tools
Proper tools are necessary to keep yourself and your trees safe. You’ll need the following materials:
- Gloves
- Pruners
- Loppers
- Hand Saw
- Rubbing Alcohol or Disinfectant
Gloves keep your hands safe from scratches or cuts, and the type of cutters you use will differ depending on the size of the branches. Pruners work well for making most small to medium-sized cuts. Loppers are essential for large branches, and hand saws work well for cutting back overgrown specimens.
A disinfectant like rubbing alcohol is essential. You must clean and sterilize the pruners after they touch a tree’s branches. If you cut an apple twig and have a pear tree next, you’ll want to sterilize the blades before cutting that pear. Sterility keeps pests and diseases from spreading in your orchard.
Cut in the Branch Collar
Where you make cuts is just as important as how you do it. A branch heals well when it’s broken or cut above the branch collar, the bulging portion on the bottom where growth cells accumulate. The area swells wider than the rest of the stem before it joins the main trunk or primary branch.
Cutting right above the branch collar is most important when tackling large stems, as they need more time to heal than smaller ones. Prune young whips, saplings, and twigs anywhere you’d like without concern for their collars. They’ll often sprout new shoots from where you cut, healing the small wound as the days lengthen and warm in spring.
The Three D’s
The first cuts are to remove the three D’s: dead, damaged, or diseased wood. These three types of wood are always useless no matter what species they’re on. Start by pruning them first; after, you’ll be able to see your trees better, allowing you to make sound pruning decisions.
When removing diseased wood, cut back to a point on the stem where the pathogen is no longer visible. Diseases can spread into cut wounds, especially if they’re already present in the canopy. Take a close look at each stem to ensure you don’t miss any of the three D’s.
Remove Wonky Branches
Wonky branches are the second type of wood we’ll remove. They include low-growing, inward-growing, and crisscrossing stems. These are the second to go because they lead to weak structures if left to grow.
Crisscrossing stems are important to cut—they’ll rub against each other and create open wounds during the growing season. Look for water sprouts growing directly upwards, suckers growing from the trunk’s base, and wonky branches. Remove each one to set your orchard up for success.
How to Prune Fruit Trees for Max Flavor
Now that we know the basics of pruning fruiting trees, it’s time to cover the specifics! How to make strategic cuts depends on the variety you have. Peaches, figs, and apples all have different styles.
Let’s walk through Jacques’ orchard to discover his top tips for pruning each species for max flavor and yield!
Peach Tree
Peaches are deciduous species that lose their leaves in the winter. They sprout blossoms and leaves on upward-growing stems in late spring. They produce heavily on the middle third of each branch, while the top and bottom thirds grow leafy shoots.
To maximize flavor, you’ll want to lop off the top third of each growing limb, reducing them to two-thirds of their total length. Jacques doesn’t shy away from making cuts on his peach; he does this sort of pruning annually to keep his fruits tasting great and looking good.
It’s important to cut back the stems so they produce at eye level. You don’t want to climb staggering orchard ladders to gather fruit!
Pear Tree
Pears are a little different than peaches. They produce spurs. Spurs are short, stubby twigs that grow pears for many years. Keep them alive and at eye level and you’ll have delicious pears within reach each year.
Pears benefit from having two nearby specimens for optimal pollination and fruit set. Jacques places two upright varieties close by and prunes their stems to prevent them from growing into each other. Try doing the same, or give your pears some space and let them grow wide.
Pear trees tend to grow long, spindly whips instead of far-reaching stems. Remove two-thirds of the tall whips so they’re at chest or eye level. Leave spurs alone if they form low on the tree, and remove the ones you can’t reach.
Plum Tree
Plums, like pears, form flowers and fruits off of spurs. They appear about two to three years after planting if you start with a slender sapling. Trees that you start from seeds or cuttings will take many more years to form spurs. Practice extensive pruning for the first ten years of their lives to create strong, dwarf structures.
Plums, apples, and pears often come in multi-graft forms with many varieties grafted onto a single specimen. Practice caution when cutting these back to ensure each variety stays alive on the tree. If one looks weak or spindly, let it grow without pruning for a year or two until it’s big and strong.
Plums benefit from an open funnel shape, with light entering the center of the trees. Ensure they have open structures so air, sunlight, and rain penetrate their canopies. Remove two-thirds of their tallest limbs to promote juicy, delicious fruits by summertime.
White and Brown Figs
White and brown figs are unlike spur-producing fruiting species. They flower and fruit off new wood, meaning you can remove much of their wood yearly. Aggressive pruning ensures they produce bushels of tender, sweet figs that aren’t mushy or rotten.
Jacques likes to cut these types of figs so their stems have two nodes. The nodes are indents where new growth emerges from buds. Leaving two per stem ensures multiple sprouts emerge in summer that won’t grow too tall or wonky.
Figs are exceptionally easy to propagate. Place the cut stems in pots with moist soil to create clones for your yard, your friends’ yards, or your neighbors’!
Black Figs
Black figs grow a bit differently than white or brown types. These trees form fruit on last year’s growth, meaning you’ll want to prune differently by keeping some old wood around for max fruit production and flavor. ‘Mission’ is a popular black fig variety that works well in many climates.
Focus on your specimen’s structure in its first few years with little concern for fruit production. After the trunk thickens and forms a sturdy base, remove individual limbs so you can reach their tops. Avoid making extensive cuts, as you’ll remove the blossoms that form this year’s figs.
Apple Tree
Apples are similar to pears and plums, fruiting off of spurs that thrive for many years when they’re left alone. Though most types produce spurs, not all of them do! Look up guides for the specific apple variety to ensure you prune your fruit tree properly and ensure max flavor and production.
Apples often form suckers and water sprouts after you make extensive cuts. Avoid removing excessive amounts, but shorten the height of each limb so you can reach their tops. Prune off any erect, upward-sprouting water shoots, and cut suckers sprouting from the trunk as low as you can manage.
