[nafex] Early pruning
sherwin
sherwindu at att.net
Sun Mar 18 14:34:25 EDT 2012
On 3/18/2012 12:49 PM, Steve wrote:
> I'm thinking of going out and starting my pruning. It may not seem early
> to some of you but it's early here. I usually wait until late April when
> the chance of real cold weather is mostly over. I just checked and our
> normal high and normal low for this date is 37 and 14 degrees F.
> Today it's already 70 degrees and the lows for the rest of the week are
> in the 40s. I think I'm going to start pruning, at least the apples,
> right now, even though it could easily get into the single digits on any
> given night for the next 3 or 4 weeks.
> Does anyone think this is a mistake? Apples are pretty forgiving but
> what about my pears and plums?
>
> Steve in the Adirondacks
>
Steve,
As far as I know, the main requirement for pruning is that the
tree is dormant.
Otherwise, you are going to encourage more growth by pruning an
actively
growing tree. So it all depends on how soon you can get out to
prune, weather
permitting. With all this warm weather, if your trees have
already woken up, you
may want to postpone your pruning, or at least limit it. Cold
weather should not
bother a freshly pruned tree.
Sherwin Dubren in Illinois
More information about the nafex
mailing list