Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 12
Pruning and Training
CHAPTER CONTENTS
To maintain healthy and productive orchards, it is critically important to
prune and train fruit trees and bushes. Although people have pruned and
trained plants for thousands of years, there are many approaches, and it is
easy to obtain conflicting advice. The reality is that many of the different
approaches work well, as long as they are based on a few simple concepts.
Pruning involves removing parts of a plant. Regardless of when and how it is
done, it has a dwarfing effect; pruned trees are always smaller than equival-
ent trees that have not been pruned. We prune our orchards to:
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Develop tree and bush shapes and establish strong structures for freest-
anding trees
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Control plant size
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Remove diseased or damaged wood
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Admit light to maintain growth and fruitfulness
