The main term for pruning apple trees is at the end of winter and early spring, but more and more often also in mid-summer.Shaping trees in this period is called complementary cut.This is not a thorough cut, but it is intended to slightly correct the shape of the crown.
It may turn out that within a few weeks twigs grew out of a nicely trimmed tree in a completely undesirable direction.What to do in this case?Correct the crown now or wait for the trees to enter the dormancy period?
Now we can cut the trees a little. The most common problem is the excessive growth of strong long shoots (wolves). They shade the crown, which makes the fruit less stained.Wolves like to grow in the upper parts of the crown and on trees that have been heavily trimmed.In July you can distinguish individual twigs and recognize completely useless long shoots.
Some of them can therefore be removed. However, we should not remove them all, because we will do so at the end of winter. Now we only cut out the strongest ones. Another very important thing is the trimming technique, which is slightly different from the winter pruning.
If we cut the growing shoots at the very root on the so-called wedding ring, no more new shoots should grow in this place.It is best if we leave a short suppository with 2-3 leaves.Thanks to this, there is a chance that valuable twigs will grow from sleeping buds located in the leaf axils this year. Often, after such a cut, not more long shoots, but short shoots grow.They are the most valuable on the tree, because it is on them that fruit is most often formed.
