North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Hélène Dessureault <interverbis@videotron.ca>]

An old apple grower from Normandie, who wrote a very technical book on 
pruning (in French), with illustrations describing every possible 
combination, in fact too detailed for practical application unless you want 
to do a phD on the subject of pruning, made one incredible comment on summer 
pruning: "Summer pruning is done by pinching with thumb and forefinger"... 
It prevents or twarth unwanted growth such as suckers, and other branches 
which you would definitely prune off next Spring. This way the tree spends 
its energy constructively (for your purpose) without spending energy on 
useless development. What it says basically is that in Summer pruning you 
mostly work on green growth before it lignifies and harden off. For 
instance, the suckers are told not to grow when you remove the tip end... 
The reaction of the tree is then to consolidate its position... You end up 
cajoling the tree instead of brutalizing it, while minimizing Spring 
pruning. The tree need not do major repairs to its wood... in Summer 
pruning, green branches can repair damages to their limbs almost overnight.

I am really not an expert on pruning, but I would like to bring up the 
interesting perspective that I found in this book. We have a tendancy to cut 
off with shears, knifes, and a multitude of other tools... making it more 
difficult for ourselves, while taking an attitude of working against instead 
of working within ...  The time not spent dealing with the tools is time 
spent looking closely at the the phenomenon of growth.

It is clear that this approach is not for large orchardist with thousands of 
trees. It is also more difficult once the tree is big enough to require a 
ladder.

Just a words for thought, in this day and age, where we need to rediscover 
collaboration...

Hélène, zone 4


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>
To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2008 9:53 PM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Summer Pruning


> > Maybe I'm wrong, but I would suspect that in a hot dry climate, summer 
> > pruning would aleviate stress on the tree rather than create more. 
> > You're taking away leaf surface area that is otherwise respirating and 
> > causing water loss in the plant.  If it stimulates new growth that hasn't 
> > hardened off I could see how that might be less than ideal, but I don't 
> > think the tree is going to put much energy into that if water is an 
> > issue.
>
>
> That's very interesting, Michael. I hadn't thought of it in that way.
>
> I guess I just thought that pruning would always be stressful, and that
> each cut would have to be healed (meanwhile leaking fluids?). But I
> suppose a pruning cut on a green, growing twig would seal itself pretty
> quickly. Obviously, I still wouldn't want to do it on a particularly hot
> and windy day, but maybe I've been looking at this wrong.
>
> Thanks for the observation!
>
> Bill
> Lincoln, NE (zone 5)
>
> --
> Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know
> this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same
> time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is
> based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we
> logically know that they are invisible because we can't see them. -
> Steve Eley
> _______________________________________________
> nafex mailing list
> nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
>
> Reproduction of list messages or archives is not allowed.
> This includes distribution on other email lists or reproduction on web 
> sites.
> Permission to reproduce is NEVER granted, so don't claim you have 
> permission!
>
> **YOU MUST BE SUBSCRIBED TO POST!**
> Posts from email addresses that are not subscribed are discarded.
> No exceptions.
> ----
> To subscribe or unsubscribe, go to the bottom of this page (also can be 
> used to change other email options):
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/nafex
>
> File attachments are NOT stripped by this list.
> TAKE STEPS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM COMPUTER VIRUSES!
> Please do not send binary files.
> Use plain text ONLY in emails!
>
> NAFEX web site:   http://www.nafex.org/