Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1915-07-05
Summer Pruning
Good Practice

Oregon Agricultural College, Cor
vallis.-Summer pruning done in the
proper way at the right time will aid
in bringing your trees up to the criti-
cal bearing stage in better condition
and tend to modify the bearing hab-
its of the more mature trees to make
them more satisfactory, according to
Professor C.. |. Lewis, horticulturist
of the college, who explains the why
and the how of summer pruning as
follows:
Let us consider first the summer
pruning for our young trees during
the formative period, that being the
ages from one to four. In many
cases not much pruning will be done
during the first summer of the trees
life, as the trees often do not make
very much growth the first season,
but where they do make a vigorous
growth and make it by the middle OF
June or early July it will often be
found to advantage to head the trees
at that time, cutting them back just
about the same way that you would
cut them back the following spring.
That is, if you have long terminal
growth, ~ to 80 inches in length, cut
it back to the point where you desire
to force out new laterals for the fu-
ture body building of the tree. Now,
you may have tree that is running
to one or two branches at the expense
of all the others 1t would be well to
pinch back these strong branches, so
as to hold them back for the time
being and thus encourage the weaker
branches to grow.
while most growers prune the
weak branch to even up the growth.
careful Investigations and record at
the college orchards show that the
proper procedure is to prune the
strong branch, which diverts much of
its nourishment into the weak
branch.
by the second year nearly all
these trees can be greatly benefited
by summer pruning. This may come
any time from the latter part of May
up to the middle of July, generally
about the middle of June. 1t consists
of cutting back the rank terminal
growth so as to force out the laterals
and allow them to make good
growth and become hardened before
fall. In this way you will gain
whole year in the framework of your
trees A good practice to follow with
such trees is to do most of the head
ing back in June and most of the
thinning out in March or April, or
whenever the winter pruning is done.
Should the trees arter they are
pruned in June make such rank
growth that they need some topping
back again the following spring, you
should by all means do so. In nearly
all cases it will be advisable to do
some topping back OF the terminals,
or else the terminal bud will incline
to continue this growth producing
long leggy branch. If no topping
is done on these shoots in spring it
will be necessary to give them a
heavy heading back in summer, to
prevent their becoming too long be-
fore producing desirable laterals.
You should remove from these young
trees, during the summer time, any
undesirable growth, branches which
you know will never be of any value
to the trees and are growing at the
expense of some branch which should
be developed. We would caution,
however, against the too strenuous
thinning out of young trees. We are
of the opinion that we have overdone
the thinning out of the lateral
branches.
This pruning which is given to
these young trees, while it does not
as rule directly induce fruitfulness,
tends to bring the trees up to the
critical period in much better condi-
tion than otherwise. Since it tends
to balance the tree and distribute the |
pruning as it does over two periods |
of the year, it eliminates the neces-
sity for very vigorous pruning which
so many growers give trees. The
heavy winter pruning given young
trees serves as a stimulus and often
causes too much vegetable growth"
The application of summer pruning
to trees from four to eight years of