Heading cuts stimulate excessive growth at the site of the cut, and will stiffen the wood that has been headed. Heading cuts should be avoided unless the intent is to cause one of these two responses to occur. Unnecessary heading cuts into an established limb or scaffolds juvenile wood will cause an excessive amount of flush growth, that will shade out the tree and be counterproductive to good tree management techniques. If tree growth suppression and the maintenance of a compact tree are the only desired effects from a heading cut, always cut an established limb or scaffold back into a mature, bearing side shoot or limb. The result will be tip dieback and wood rots will occur.
Renewal cuts, on the other hand, are cuts made at the point of branch origin.
Most renewal cuts are intended to remove a branch that is no longer desirable because of vigor concerns or excessive crowding. Renewal cuts, on established trees, are always into mature wood and will not spark the vegetative regrowth that a heading cut will. Avoid heading cuts like the plague-use only where you need to promote tree vigor. Any scaffold or limb that is half the size or larger in diameter to the main leader should be removed. A branch of this size will choke out the leader, not allowing the tree to reach optimal fruiting capacity.