North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[sherwin <sherwindu@att.net>]

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