Late Winter & Early Spring is the Best Time to Prune Your Fruit Trees and Bushes
In Alberta, late winter and early spring is the best time to prune your fruit trees and bushes!
Prune after the coldest weather has passed but before new buds have appeared. Usually this is from mid March to mid April. Pruning your fruit trees and bushes in this window maximizes the benefits to your plant. These benefits include:
- Reduced stress on the tree because its dormant and not actively growing,
- Reduced risk of disease & bacterial infection compared to the summer,
- Lowered risk of winter injury after the very cold temperatures have passed,
- Better pruning
- It’s easier to see your tree’s branch structure & make good pruning decisions,
- Good pruning practices encourage more fruit production and better quality fruit,
- Good pruning also reduces disease by allowing airflow and sunlight into the interior structure of the tree,
- Encourages new growth:
- The energy stores of your trees are still concentrated in the roots, not spread out in the branches like it is during the summer,
- Your tree can use it’s energy stores for growth where you want it instead of spending that energy on growing branches and buds you want to remove,
- By choosing your tree’s structure it can use its energy stores to produce more & better fruit.
If you missed the spring pruning window it’s not the end of the world, you can still prune in the summer if the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. You won’t see the increased growth you would from spring pruning but reducing the risk of disease for your plants might be more worthwhile than waiting until next year. The worst time to Prune fruit trees and bushes is the late fall and early winter.
Have some questions or need help pruning your fruit trees and bushes? We’re here to help!
Resources:
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-005.htm