Winter Pruning of Apple Trees

Two apple trees. Several years of very limited fruiting. Then a bumper crop… so many apples I could not even give away enough of the bounty I had. What changed? There could be many things related to pollinators, hydration, timing of the last frost, and more that resulted in this great harvest from these fruit trees. But I believe the good fruit production was primarily due to the fact that I had engaged in some careful but significant pruning during the apple trees’ dormancy in the previous winter. That pruning had helped.

I had not pruned these fruit trees much prior to this glorious “year of the apple”. But my lack of pruning, or minimal pruning, was not done without my giving it some thought. My fruit trees were still fairly immature, and advice from an arborist friend prompted me to leave them alone until they could achieve a few additional years of growth. He showed me a few cuts to make, but then he advised me to wait. Sure, they’d have branches that would cross, creating the possibility that their bark could rub off in those crossed spots, allowing problems to enter. And yes, they’d get a little taller than the trees many apple growers would like, without pruning to keep their branches mainly parallel to the ground and low enough to provide easy reach to tip-top fruit. But the advice to me was to wait for a decent fruit-producing year before pruning these fruit trees heavily. I could prune when the trees had a bit more age on them.

So, that is what I did. Following a year when the fruiting was okay—not great, but definitely better than anything I had experienced with these trees—I bundled up in March and pruned, removed, trimmed, inspected…. I made up for lost time, pruning more than I ever thought I would. Pruning is often a hard task for me, as I think “more is more” and hate to remove branches that might indeed bear fruit. But prune, I did. Honestly, at the point I was engaged in this task, I was sick of just “okay fruiting”. I figured that if some good, careful cuts would not help, then tending fruit trees was just not for me. I would err on the side of doing a significant pruning after reading some helpful guides and being sure I was confident in my ability to take on the task. Then, what would be would be.

First I removed dead branches and anything that looked unhealthy. I thinned out crowded branches and cut crossed branches for the reason mentioned earlier. I removed weak branches, leaving horizontal growth that ran parallel to the ground. I snipped off-shoot branches that were newly emerging from those nice, sturdier branches. I got brave and resigned myself to lopping off a secondary leader (vertical branch growing skyward from the trunk, beside an even healthier and better positioned vertical branch). I knew that the main vertical branch I would keep should not be competing with another branch quite so similar, so one had to go… and it did. 

I worked with very clean pruners in a couple of different sizes. I was thankful for the cold weather which I knew would go a long way in getting the cuts on the branches to heal without issue. While it is hard to believe that pruning in the coldest part of winter ensures that apple or other fruit trees will fare better, this is actually the case… no warm moisture from spring rains to allow a fungus to enter the bark after a spring pruning, and no premature new growth to start out at the wrong time after a fall trim. So, in the coldest part of March, I made my cuts, pruning, stepping back to see what to cut next, and then cutting more. I aimed to create a pyramid shape out of each of these fruit trees.

I was sure that I should leave a collar where a cut branch had met the trunk of the tree—in other words, I avoided cutting too far into the trunk. And I cut at angles, as I would with roses. This took a bit of thought, but this is how I aimed to prune, with some success and a few hiccups. And I pruned. Then I stopped. Hard stop. No more trimming. No picking up the pruners again in spring. The spring that followed my March pruning work, I saw clouds of beautiful apple blossoms (thankfully, pollinated well), then fruit on every branch, fruit that was able to hang on past “June drop”, fruit that filled bushels and refrigerator shelves. The crop was amazing.

Feeling the chill of a cold winter night right now, I cannot say that I am ready to bundle up and do that same pruning this year. But I will when March rolls around. With those same fruit trees, I sat back during last year—a year that followed the year of my bumper crop. I wanted to give the trees a little rest from any major pruning work, and they did rest… not much fruit. Apple trees can bear fruit biennially, so perhaps the poor crop last year was unavoidable. But I left my fruit trees alone, when in fact I know I should have engaged in at least some annual pruning. Pruning makes a difference.

So now, when the March calendar page turns over, I will be outdoors with a good jacket and warm hat, clean and sharp pruners, with information in mind after revisiting some trusted guides on pruning fruit trees. I’ll send up good thoughts for the right amount of spring rain at the right time in the future. I will keep my fingers crossed, and avoid using lawn chemicals, in hopes that pollinators will visit my trees in spring. And I will feel as though my dormant-time, cold winter pruning has done what it needs to do to produce another bumper crop of apples. I want these trees to make the cut. So cut, I will, pruning to enhance the performance of these fruit trees I love so much.