Pruning Apple Trees in Winter

Yes that's right.  I said pruning in winter.

Although it's cold and snowy, winter is a great time to prune as the apple trees are dormant.  That means there isn't any sap flowing.


Decked out in full winter attire

If you cut while the sap is flowing it may bleed, attracting insects and bacteria which can lead to disease. In winter there are no insects and the cold doesn't allow for bacteria growth. Also consider that sap is the source of a tree's food and energy. If you prune out branches in winter, when the sap does begin to flow that energy will be directed to the branches that are intact. A tree that is pruned during summer will still send energy to a pruned branch. That energy will have nowhere to go and will result in excess vertical growth called water spouts.


Notice the water spouts at the base of this trunk, on the right side.

Another reason to prune in winter is that you want to clearly see the structure of the tree so you know exactly what branches you are removing. Cutting when the branches are bare of leaves and apples allows you to do this.

You also don't want to prune when there are apples on the tree. Falling branches can knock apples down or bruise them.

Pruning in winter doesn't come without its issues though.  We found ourselves sinking in the deep snow so we decided to strap on snowshoes.  They proved a bit difficult to manuvre in.



I now know that trying to walk backgrounds through snow while dragging heavy branches is difficult at the best of times, let alone doing it in showshoes. Perhaps waiting a few more weeks for the snow to disipate couldn't have hurt.  It is okay to wait for the weather to be more cooperative, just make sure you prune before it gets too warm.  We did this pruning almost a month ago and could still prune now in mid-March but spring is quickly approaching and I wouldn't want to wait much longer.

Now you might be wondering, didn't we prune our apple trees in November too?  It's true, we did.  At that time we were simply removing dead branches which is something you can do at any time of year.  If a branch is dead nothing more can hurt it so you can feel free to remove these branches whenever you see them.  We also removed three trees in their entirety.  Again, at this point you're killing the tree anyway so it doesn't matter when it's done.

If we removed dead branches in November you might wonder what were we pruning for now?



This tree had many low hanging branches on the left side.

Since our orchard hasn't received any attention in quite some time we were focussed on removing branches to make it more accessible and easier to maintain.  Hubby has to mow the grass around the orchard and was having a lot of difficulty.  I also found myself getting hit in the head by low branches so we attempted to remove as many of those as possible.

A small chainsaw was used to remove the large low hanging limbs.

It is important to note that you should never remove more than one third of a tree's branches at any given time when pruning.  Sometimes we forget that a large portion of a tree lives underground.  The size of the root system is in proportion to the canopy and if too much of the canopy is removed the balance is disrupted.  As noted earlier this can cause water spouts and other irregular growth. 

Many branches came down from many trees
but never more than 1/3 from a single tree.

This pruning is the first step towards renovating this old orchard.  Next year we will concentrate on pruning branches higher in the tree canopies to improve air circulation and light which will benefit fruit production.