Pruning fruit trees

Pruning fruit trees is essential to ensure good production. Guy Langlais, a tree pruning specialist and retired professor at ITAQ in La Pocatière, explains some of the basics of this operation.

TRANSCRIPT

[We see Pierre Jeffrey (PJ) who is pruning an apple tree with hand pruning shears.]

[PJ says, as a few guitar notes fade out in the background.]

When you start pruning, it’s mainly the sucker branch effect that develops on the trees. These branches must be removed.

[Guy Langlais (GL) appears in an orchard in bloom. He is standing next to a small apple tree and explains how to prune it.]

When you start pruning, it’s mainly the sucker branch effect that develops on the trees. These branches must be removed.

First of all, you need to know that there’s a balance in fruit trees between fruit production and the production of wood and new stems.

So, you have to try to control this balance so that you’ll eventually have beautiful fruit-bearing branches, fruit-bearing branches, and so that you can produce wood that will bear fruit in future years.

You have to work in the short term for fruit, and then in the medium or longer term for fruit in the second or third year.

When you have a bud, it can become wood or fruit. And the tree may decide to turn it into a new branch like this one here

[GL points to a branch]

or to turn it into a wood branch like this one or a fruit or flower branch like that one.

[GL points to another branch]

And it’s the angle of the branch that will influence this balance.
Here, for example, you can see that we have what is called a sucker.

Why is it called a sucker? Because it’s a branch that grows well and is vertical. And this branch will not bear fruit, or it will take a long time for it to do so. And it will not produce very much So, it’s really in balance as far as wood is concerned. If I keep it, I’ll inevitably have less fruit. And if I remove it, well I’ll be favouring these branches, which are horizontal, and those branches, by giving them an angle that’s more horizontal, like this,

[GL indicates the angle with his hands.]

so you can see that there are plenty of beautiful fruit buds here, plenty of flower buds that will eventually become fruit that will ensure production.