pruning 101

[Mr. Moonshine]

hey I am looking for some advice on pruning hazelnut trees and an almond tree, I believe its been a few years since any one has touched them.

how much can i take out? ex is 30% too much?
should i do it now or wait until spring?
we also have some plums, apple and pare trees, so any tips on those would be handy too

thanks!

 

[Youngbuck20]

It's safe to do a third of the tree, apparently. I don't think I'd prune out 1/3 of it though. I like 1/5-1/4


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[treesmith]

Hazel (Corylus Avellana) a multi stemmed large shrub/small tree, is one of the old British coppice favourites. Growth tends to be vigorous unless left to get too big then they weaken and lose vigour. Regular Coppicing will keep the plant regrowing indefinitely but coppicing overgrown trees can have a rather detrimental effect on health, sometimes fatal. Coppicing - cutting off at ground level is generally for unhybridised natural natives. They are normally tolerant of severe pruning if the plant is healthy enough. Uses included walking sticks, wattle and daub and fence panels. They can sprout heavily from improper pruning and large wounds will decay steadily but no where near as fast as willow/birch. Hybrids tend to be less durable/vigorous. Can be used for hedging of any size and farmers regularly trim them with tractor flails in autumn/winter with no noticeable ill effects on life span or vigour. The nicest results come from target pruning with hand saw and secateurs or starting again from ground level. Twisted corkscrew Hazel - Corylus Avellana Contorta should have any straight stems removed and is not as vigorous or tolerant of heavy pruning as far as I know. As for pruning fruit trees, try Google, there are different pruning techniques for different end results and types.
Hope that helps
Andy

 

[beastmaster]

1. A lot depends on what your looking for and want from the trees. The way they do orchard trees is night and day different then the way you'ed do the same tree as an ornamental. To get optimized nut or fruit production the trees are hit pretty had to encourage lots of fruit/nut bearing branches. Depending on the type of tree its cut back to first or second or ? year growth. Almonds are like peach trees so I'm just guessing you'ed cut one back to the 2ed years growth. But if your not a professional farmer your better off doing a combination of both techniques so your not stuck with a mutilated ugly tree. lightly trimming, making cuts at buds and laterals. No hard end cuts, a pruning artist can hide most his cuts making the tree look natural. Remove obvious things that don't belong. remove suckers, branches that are rubbing on each other. look for a tree with in a tree and lightly shape the tree. All species of trees have a genetic shape. You want to work with in those boundaries.
2. Go slow and don't cut to much at one time. Less is better. I never like to prune in the spring, it'll make the tree grow, promoting lots of fast growth. By summer you'll never know the tree was trimmed. Summer pruning can help slow or keep a tree smaller. but be careful of taking out to much letting the bark get sun burned. Fall, winter up to before bud break is a good time, and most fruit and nut trees are done then. A lot of what you have to do will be based on how old your trees are. Younger trees will take more abuse then older mature trees. good luck and have fun

 

[Mr. Moonshine]

thanks every one!