In the second year, choose 3-4 of these branches to continue to grow. Remove the ends of branches in winter to encourage forking of the branch for more tip-bearing shoots. Pinch out the growing tips of all the other branches at about four or five leaves, including those lower down on the stem. From Spring through late Summer, a deciduous tree is actively growing both leaves and branches  and its underground root structure to match. Please remember to follow us and join our newsletter! These will become your scaffold branches. A compact stonefruit like this begins with the prune you do at planting. When plum trees are not carefully pruned, they can easily become heavy and break under their fruit load. Harvest all the fruit prior to pruning. Pruning Fruit Trees Advice and Help in New Zealand. The principle is to avoid damaging the collar of the branch and to make a clean cut which doesn't tear the bark. If you would like help getting the most out of your garden, I would love to help you, The Homesteaders Guide to  Seasonal Eating, Privacy Policy, Disclosure, Disclaimer & Copyrights. In hot summer areas, sunscald of fruit is minimized by allowing greater leaf-cover over fruit. Instead, you will have to choose between three alternative pruning options. These scaffold branches may have small branchlets, but are usually covered in short stubby growth called spurs, which is where the fruit is borne. No pressure. It is necessary to prune for renewal of some spurs each season, although most of the new growth is removed. This ensures a balanced crop that does not need thinning. As your tree grows and develops, if something is too long, or too tall, or sticking out too far, you just cut it off. What's a spur? Pruning the young plum tree is easy. On the other hand, if you come through once or twice during the growing season and prune back some of the actively growing leaf mass – long, whippy, new growth branches, typically – you are limiting the vigor of a tree. our Disclosure Statement. Please read In New Zealand’s warmer climes, fruit trees are a Kiwi backyard staple. For the first winter you simply cut it off about 1.5-2 feet (45-60cm) leaving only a trunk and some buds. First and Second Year Pruning. I want to help you make your self-sufficient dreams a reality. And don’t worry, we hate spam too! 266 pages of self sufficiency right there! I own every one of them and they are amazing resources! In cool-summer areas, fruit ripening is encouraged by thinning leaf-cover over fruit clusters. Increase fruit size and quality by thinning baby fruits so that fewer, larger, uncrowded fruit mature. Plums and plumcots are generally pruned into a vase shape, but the variety of plum will influence where the fruit is mainly produced. Make big cuts first. Piwakawaka Valley Homestead is here to help you learn exactly how you can homestead anywhere. European varieties (that’s Prunus domestica – including damsons, greengages and prune varieties) form fruit mainly on semi-permanent spurs, with a small amount on the previous season’s growth. Each year, prune the plum trees … 16/11/2016 by Rossy. When the tree is pruned in the summer months, the growth is strong and the sap is flowing and this prevents the disease from entering the pruning wound. .wp-show-posts-columns#wpsp-6743 {margin-left: -2em; }.wp-show-posts-columns#wpsp-6743 .wp-show-posts-inner {margin: 0 0 2em 2em; }, Sign up for our weekly Fresh From the Farm Newsletter. Eating food that has been produced from your own home can be a very satisfying experience. Hello and welcome, I’m Dana. It is best to always paint the cuts with a wound paint to protect the tree - and remember to sharpen your secateurs. About Piwakawaka Valley Homestead The starting height of branches can differ depending on your needs. A tree can’t grow more canopy than its root structure will support, but it will do whatever it must to balance the two. Without an open habit, dense branches will be shaded and will not crop prolifically. Pruning apple, pear, plum, peach, apricot or nectarines is actually easy once you understand a few basics. Vase has only one layer of branches extending from the stem. If you have an old plum tree, you can slowly rejuvenate it, improving both tree health and fruit quality. Expect fruit once tree is 4-6 years old. Otherwise, … What sometimes mystifies people is the different types of buds on fruit trees; what is a fruit bud? The result is typically water sprouts, ugly, straight-up branches that a tree can grow quickly and hang a lot of leaves on and not grow fruit – not ideal. From lemons and grapefruit, through to apple and feijoa, there is certainly no shortage of options to fill the fruit bowl.However, not every homeowner knows how to make sure their tree produces the best fruit – which is paramount if you’re an average Kiwi kid trying to sell homemade lemonade outside your house. Apple trees are among the easiest, and most forgiving, trees to prune, but plums are just as easy. This low centre of gravity means that with annual pruning you can keep your fully grown tree to 3m – 4m. Once shape has been established, they require little pruning. How to prune a plum tree – cutting back the leaders. Nectarines, peaches, almonds and plums - w e recommend to prune stone fruit trees in late summer after fruiting has finished, however it can be done in early-mid autumn if necessary. Apple and pear branches are most productive if trained to grow horizontally by tying or weighing the branches down while the branches are young and pliable if you can. Pruning your plum tree step-by-step. Heavy pruning stimulates lots of new growth but less fruit production. Get exclusive content, discounts and updates. Deciduous Fruit Trees. Semi-dwarf plums will produce 75 to 100 pounds of fruit each year. Developing a strong foundation is essential to the life of any fruit tree. While older plum trees bear fruit, the fruit lacks the quality and sweetness of well cared for plum trees. Pruning fruit trees is one of the more intimidating parts of growing your own food for many. Fruit trees can be a great addition to any garden. Prune plum trees are mostly available from June to August, as the field-grown trees are lifted from nurseries during the deciduous dormancy period to … If you let a tree grow all summer without any pruning, the tree captures all that solar energy and converts this into a strong, expanded root structure. This … Advertisement. If you need to remove a branch that is too large for your loppers you will need to use a saw. The little pointy spurs are fruit buds. We want a strong, solid scaffold for our fruit trees, and this is achieved by careful detail pruning in winter for shape and structure. Choose ones that are well spaced apart and point out rather than straight up. So the ideal is to prune it to a good shape in the early years and then just maintain that shape as time goes on. The next set of branches should be about 60-90cm/2-3ft above these, so anything that grows between should be snipped off before they grow too thick. The purpose of pruning and training is to encourage tree health and increase fruit yield. I like my fold out pruning saw. So, for size restriction of fruit trees, I am a big fan of summer pruning. Save to My scrapbook How to prune a plum tree – pruning side shoots. Apples and pears are usually pruned with one main leader (the trunk) with scaffold branches coming out in levels from that. Avoid pruning in late Summer. Standard trees produce 100 to 150 pounds of fruit each year. Keep the tree small with vigor-reducing pruning in summer as required. Ultimately you choose how tall your tree eventually grows, once it is tall enough, you need to keep it topped. Just as the buds are starting to break in the springtime, cut back the central stem of the tree to a bud at about two thirds of the height of the maiden tree. Remove vertical branching and water shoots’ regularly. These spurs are usually 20 - 30cm long. Peach & Nectarine Trees: These trees flower on new wood made the previous summer, so prune hard to encourage new growth. They are tip-bearing varieties, which, as the name suggests, produces fruit on the tips of the branches, rather than spurs. You can choose to grow apples and pears as a vase/open crown/goblet shape if you prefer, but it is not the shape they naturally grow in, and you may find that they continually try to grow new leaders (straight upward branches). In spring, choose four or five branches that have formed wide angles with the stem. This will force the tree to grow branches at the top of the trunk. Leafy summer prunings can be added straight to the compost heap where they’ll rot down quickly. The picture below illustrates the three steps. For further reading, I really recommend all of these books. Plums: pruning Plum trees do not require as precise pruning as apples and pears, but still benefit from initial training and the thinning of old wood to ensure they produce as much fruit as possible. Shorten all the lateral branches to about 15cm to allow the main stem to thicken. However, winter pruning is not about size control of the tree, and if you try to winter prune for size control you will quickly be in a terrible battle with your tree, because you will be sending it very mixed signals. Keep the trees small enough to fit your space, and even to be able to harvest the fruit without a ladder. A fruit tree that towers over your head is a waste (unless your passion is keeping the birds fed.) Summer pruning can be used t… The truth is, good pruning of a fruit tree isn’t particularly difficult if you understand why you are doing it. Having an open centre, which effectively means removing the main trunk, helps with air flow to reduce pest and disease build-up and allows easier access to blossoms for bees for increased pollination. Space full-sized trees 20 to 25 feet apart. If you have the room you can grow several varieties that will provide delicious juicy fruit from December through to … When a tree has lost its leaves you can see the structure of the tree, you can make cuts to correct the shape more easily. Plum Tree Yields. Depending on the variety, 20 - 40% of the fruitwood around the tree is renewed annually by leaving young shoots and removing old wood. For these the encouragement of many tips for more fruit-producing branches is the goal. Remove any small secondary branches coming off a branch that are within a hands-span of the main trunk. 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