And the little stubby bits of growth, which are fruiting spurs, will develop apples this season. Leave the laterals intact because they will develop fruiting spurs for next season. There's also a branch that comes off the side of the shoot at an angle of between 30 and 60 degrees and that's called a lateral. Remember the shoot on the end of each tip is called a terminal and this won't ever fruit, so reduce that to just five or six buds. We want a nice, open framework and not too many competing branches, because it won't fruit properly. Remove and clear the clutter within the tree. When pruning apples look for a central leader, and prune to make sure there are no competing branches.

These have survived with rainwater and no regular pruning.īut the trees now need attention. It has 25 trees including varieties of apples, pears and plums. This orchard in the Adelaide Hills was planted eight years ago.

The aim of pruning fruit trees in the home garden is to assist the tree to produce reliable quality crops, with good size fruit on a manageable size tree. But if the trees grow too tall the fruit is high and hard to reach, and when there is unproductive wood they don't tend to crop reliably. These trees will fruit well whether or not they are pruned. Winter is the best time to prune deciduous fruit trees such as apples, pears and plums.

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