How to do the summer pruning

Why is a summer cut useful?

In addition to the fruit wood, numerous wood shoots develop along the annual branch extensions, i.e. the shoots that emerged in the previous year. They must also be converted into short fruit wood so that the desired, loose crown shape is created. Especially young fruit trees in the Parenting phase benefit from such a cut.

How to do a summer pruning

To do this, pinch the young, still green wooden shoots as soon as they are about 20 centimeters long. To do this, pinch the shoot tips back to around three to four well-developed leaves, although you should not remove them directly on the leaf. Instead, you better put the knife or scissors a little over it. The tree reacts to this first sharpening with renewed strong wood shoots: From the first one to three eyes of the sharpened shoots, new ones develop. However, you should only leave one at a time, otherwise the fruit wood would stand too close together. The excess shoots are cut away, the remaining shoots shortened to two leaves. In addition, you should shorten wood shoots that arise from perennial fruit wood during early summer.

Caution: Only herbaceous, still young shoots can be converted into fruit wood

When removing the point, you should only select herbaceous, sparsely woody shoots with a maximum length of 20 to 25 centimeters. Only these can be converted into fruit wood.

This remains to be done with a subsequent winter pruning

After a summer cut, there is not much left to do in the coming winter. You now leave the short fruit wood untouched. If, however, wood shoots have developed from the fruit wood, these are removed down to the lowest one during the vegetation break and this in turn shortened to two eyes. if on older fruit trees If the fruit wood is too close, it is cleared with the scissors. Cut so that the remaining fruit wood gets enough light.