To prune apple trees seems to be a daunting task, but this guide will teach you when and how to do it properly. If you want your apple tree to continue producing lots of apples for you to eat, it's important to prune it often.
Even though a thick, dense apple tree may look lush and healthy, trees that are overgrown actually have a hard time making good fruit. Just a few careful cuts at the right time will get your apple tree ready for a bountiful harvest.
Why To Prune Apple Trees?
There are several key reasons for apple tree pruning:
Control Size and Shape: Pruning keeps the tree at a manageable height and shape for easy maintenance and harvesting.
Remove Dead/Damaged Wood: Pruning removes any dead, diseased or broken branches to promote a healthy tree.
Improve Air Circulation: Opening up the interior with pruning allows good air flow to reduce pest and disease issues.
Increase Sunlight Penetration: Letting in more sunlight by thinning branches allows the fruit to develop better size and quality.
Apple trees can become overly dense if not pruned. The fruit only grows on short 3-5 inch branches called spurs. Too much unproductive branch growth saps energy away from the fruit-bearing spurs. Without pruning, you end up with fewer fruit spurs and more non-bearing branches.
Regular pruning manages the tree's size, removes problematic growth, improves air/light exposure, and directs the tree's energy into fruit production on the desirable fruiting spurs. This maximizes the quantity and quality of the apple harvest.
Below are the ways on how to prune apples for a fruitful harvest:
1. Prune Yearly For Fruitful Production
The best time to trim and prune apple trees when it is late winter or early spring, just before the tree starts growing new leaves and branches. You'll want to do a little pruning every year.
However, if your apple tree is already mature and older, you can do a major pruning every 3 years instead of annually. You'll know your tree needs a bigger pruning when you notice it producing fewer apples each year compared to previous harvests.
Avoid pruning apple trees in the summer or fall months, unless you are just removing dead or diseased branches. Pruning during the growing season can leave the tree more susceptible to diseases, insect pests, and cold/frost damage over winter.
Before pruning apple trees, you need the right tools and to know how to make proper pruning cuts. Do not use a chainsaw - those are for removing entire trees. The main tools for pruning are:
Pruning shears for small, thin branches
Lopping shears for medium-sized branches
A pruning saw for the largest, woody branches
Make sure your tools are clean and the blades are sharp. This prevents spreading disease and makes cleaner cuts. When cutting branches, make the cut at a 45-degree angle about 1/4 inch above a bud.
For safety, only prune small trees you can reach without a ladder. Never work alone - have someone help watch for falling branches. Wear protective gloves and goggles. Only attempt pruning if you can do so safely.
When pruning a tree, start by removing any problem branches. Look for branches that are diseased, dead, or crossed/rubbing against other branches. Diseased branches will have signs like odd growths, sunken areas, or discoloration in the bark.
Dead branches will be brittle and snap easily if you bend them. Crossed branches are ones growing in a way that rubs against and interferes with other main branches. Even healthy trees usually have some unhealthy growth like this. These problem branches can make the whole tree vulnerable to insect pests and disease spreading.
Use your pruning shears or loppers to cut off any dead, damaged, or dying branches as soon as you notice them. You can remove these problem branches at any time of year before doing any other pruning.
4. Remove The Unproductive Growth
You'll also want to remove any branches on the tree that won't produce fruit, since allowing them to grow wastes the tree's energy. There are three main types of unproductive growth to look for like suckers, water sprouts, and whorls.
Basically, suckers are the branches growing out from the very bottom of the trunk, and water sprouts are thin, upright shoots that sprout from larger branches or dormant buds. When three or more small branches emerge tightly together from a single spot it is called whorls.
For suckers and water sprouts, you can simply use pruning shears to snip them off right where they're growing out of the trunk or branch.
Whorls are a bit trickier since you have multiple branches in the same spot. Identify the largest, healthiest branch in the whorl cluster and keep that one. Cut off all the other smaller branches in that whorl cluster where they connect. Leaving whorls unattended allows the smaller branches to weigh down and weaken the stronger main branch you want.
For mature fruit trees, you'll want to prune off any branches that are within 4 feet from the ground. These low-hanging branches are unlikely to get enough sunlight to properly grow and ripen fruit.
Even if some fruit does develop on the low branches, it will be easily accessible to deer, squirrels, and other wildlife that may eat or damage the fruit before you can harvest it. Instead of leaving these low branches that attract pests and have poor fruit production, it's best to just remove them entirely using pruning shears.
Cutting off branches below the 4 foot level accomplishes a few things:
It eliminates shaded areas where fruit won't grow well
It removes easy access for wildlife to eat the fruit
It opens up the lower trunk and canopy to better air flow
By pruning away these lowest branches on mature trees, you can focus the tree's energy on developing larger, higher quality fruit higher up in the canopy where it's safer from pests.
6. Remove Downward-Growing Branches
Sometimes branches on a fruit tree start growing downwards towards the ground. These drooping branches usually end up getting too shaded to properly grow fruit. As they continue growing downwards, they can also start crowding and rubbing against the tree's more productive, upward-facing branches.
This rubbing can damage the main scaffold branches that form the structural framework of the tree. The downward growth can also block sunlight from reaching the branches that would otherwise develop fruit.
To prevent this, it's important to prune away any branches that are growing downwards towards the ground. Also remove any small side branches that are rubbing or crowding the tree's larger, structural branches. Pruning these downward-facing and rubbing branches accomplishes a few things:
It eliminates shaded areas where fruit won't grow well
It prevents damage to the main scaffold branches
It opens up the canopy for better light exposure and air flow
7. Focus On The Leader
Most apple trees are grown with a single upright central trunk called the leader. This gives the tree a pyramidal shape, with branches extending out from the central leader. The leader provides the main structural framework for the tree. It's important not to severely prune back or remove the central leader trunk.
You can trim it back by 1-2 feet if needed to control height, but avoid aggressive pruning of the leader. The branches coming off the leader should be kept shorter than the leader itself. Use pruning shears or a saw to cut back any large branches that are getting as long or outgrowing the central leader.
Letting these branches get too long causes them to compete with and lean away from the leader, giving the tree an unbalanced, misshapen appearance. Unless you need to keep the overall tree small, allow the upright leader to remain the tallest point, with the outward facing branches shorter and pyramiding down from the leader.
The main goal to trim apple tree is to open up the interior and spacing between branches to allow good light and air penetration. Too much thick, dense growth leads to shaded, unproductive areas.
Thinning:
Remove any branches growing inward towards the center of the tree, as they block light penetration
Remove branches that are too close togeather and crowding each other
Cut off 20-30% of last year's new stem growth to thin it out
Heading Back Branches:
When trimming back (heading) branches, make angled cuts at 45 degrees
Cut 1/4 inch above an outward facing bud
Only remove up to 1/5 (20%) of the total branches if you prune annually
If the tree is very overgrown, remove up to 1/3 (33%) maximum
Proper thinning and heading back overgrowth improves light exposure and renews productive fruiting wood without excessively stressing the tree. Just be cautious not to overprune, especially on trees that are regularly maintained.
9. Give Your Tree Pyramid Shape
After completing major pruning cuts, take a step back and assess the overall shape of the apple tree. The ideal form should be an open, pyramidal silhouette, with the uppermost branches slightly shorter than the middle and lower branches.
If the canopy appears overcrowded or cluttered, make any necessary final pruning cuts to establish this desirable pyramid shape. So after major pruning, step back and visualize the pyramidal outline, removing any stray branches as needed. Then follow up with fruit thinning about a month after flowering to limit the crop load.
Achieving the ideal open-centered pyramid shape and reasonable fruit load maximizes airflow, sunlight exposure and the tree's ability to produce a bountiful harvest of large, flavorful apples.
About 20-40 days after flowering, the tree is expected to drop some of the newly-set fruitlets on its own. This is also a good time to thin the remaining crop by 30-50% by hand and remove any small or low quality fruitlets.
Selective fruit drop enables the tree to direct its resources toward producing few but big apples instead of using its energy to make many tiny apples.
When prune apple tree, the tree overall structure becomes balanced to allow proper thinning to determine the right fruit load on the tree will allow enough airflow and sunlight penetration for the yield.
Tips For Pruning
If this is your first time pruning, don't be intimidated. Mature apple trees are resilient and can tolerate some pruning mistakes as you learn. Just take it slow and careful. For newly planted trees, wait until the 3rd year to do major pruning. This allows the tree to get established first.
If your tree is overgrown and needs extensive pruning:
Space it out over multiple seasons instead of all at once
The first year, prune it back heavily, leaving just a few main branches
The next year, cut away the remaining old growth once new basal shoots appear
Pruning stimulates new growth, so heavy pruning on very old, stagnant trees can help rejuvenate them.
If the tree appears weak or grows slowly, fertilizing can help support it:
Use an organic nitrogen-rich fertilizer in February
This provides nutrients to promote vigorous new growth
The key is taking it gradually with overgrown trees. Severe all-at-once pruning can shock and further weaken the tree. With proper pruning renewal and fertilization, even neglected apple trees can bounce back over time.
