Post Harvest Pruning of Mature Orchards
Pruning is one of the subjects that can have ten people explain it in ten different ways. This has to do a lot with the traditional thoughts on how an almond tree should look, the believed benefits of pruning, and personal experiences. It is one of the most important practices of orchard maintenance due to the expense and its effect on orchard yield and longevity. Therefore pruning should be considered more of a science than an art. Pruning can be broken down into two phases: The tree training phase and the maintenance period phase. During the tree training phase, we work to establish and shape the permanent framework of the tree through primary and secondary scaffold selection. This occurs through the first three years of the orchard life. The maintenance pruning phase occurs from the 4th leaf on and is done to maintain the shape of the tree. This post will focus on pruning during the maintenance period of the orchard life. In order to understand the principles of pruning, we need to understand the underlying principle of orchard management: We are farming sunlight. The more sunlight that is intercepted by tree leaves, the more production we can achieve within our orchard. Therefore, trees need to fill the available space as quickly as possible to achieve maximum yields. Along with this, we want to ensure orchard viability by having sufficient fruitwood to produce a sizable crop for the life of the orchard. So, to do this, do we need to prune? The short answer is “no.” Studies by by farm advisors Roger Duncan (Stanislaus Co.), John Edstrom (Colusa Co.), Bill Krueger (Glenn Co.), and Mario Viveros (Emeritus, Kern Co.) have demonstrated that pruning does not increase yield over minimally, or “unpruned” trees (Table 1). As we can see, conventional, annually
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