The WINTER CHOP!

David Patch demystifies the pruning of apple and pear trees

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I sometimes wish I worked in an area such as Al or String Theory where there were regular advances in science and understanding.

Then, when I came to write a piece on pruning, I could include some breaking news or new developments. Unfortunately, when it comes to pruning fruit trees, it was all worked out well over a hundred years ago by some extremely talented fruit growers, both here in the UK and in France and Belgium. Advances in science over the past 100 years have only served to back up what they already knew through empirical evidence alone.

The fact that how to prune apple and pear trees is generally well-established doesn't stop it from being one of the most confusing aspects of growing fruit for many. We have a programme of talks and demonstrations here at the nursery on our Apple Weekend, and the pruning talk is, without fail, standing room only. The problems seem to coalesce around two main attitudes - those who are too timid to prune, put away the secateurs in confusion and end up with an overgrown tree prone to disease. Or at the opposite end of the scale, those whose husbands (and it is always the husbands!) become 'chainsaw happy', lopping off branch after branch, which provokes masses of hedgehog-like water shoots.

I think the confusion comes as a result of concentrating on the 'where' and the 'when', rather than the 'how' and the 'why'. If you have a general understanding of why you are pruning, and a clear idea of what you are aiming to achieve, things should (hopefully!) become a little simpler.