The Surprising Pruning Tip That Will Help Saplings Produce More Fruit

Yes, buying the biggest tree at the nursery may result in fruit faster, but it may not be the best long-term choice. Planting smaller saplings is easy because they tend to need less water, but most importantly, smaller trees will have time to adapt to your garden. This could make them more successful than bigger trees in the years ahead. If you have already purchased a tall, spindly specimen, don't worry. All you need is a good set of pruners to lop off the top to turn the tallest sapling in the garden center into a healthy, full, fruit-producing tree.

While there are several things you can do when your trees aren't fruiting, good pruning is high on that list. So it's important to know there are also a few reasons you might prefer to buy smaller trees when it comes to pruning. Bigger trees with thicker branches are harder to prune, making your job of shaping the new tree more difficult. Ultimately, though, pruning promotes growth, so the more you have to cut back a tall fruit tree, the more growth you can expect to see as a result. 

If you've chosen a tall, spindly tree that has no branches — or none within 20 to 30 inches above the soil line — you will need to make an aggressive cut. Using a clean, sharp pruning implement, trim the main trunk to between 26 and 30 inches from the ground to encourage new branches along the trunk. This may seem counterintuitive, but a tall tree could put out branches so far from the ground that you won't be able to reach the fruit. This pruning method, known as the open-center system, encourages branches to grow laterally about 4 to 6 inches below the cut. 

If your too-tall tree already has branches, select a half-dozen or fewer that are growing 15 to 30 inches above the soil line — preferably at a 60 to 90-degree angle from the trunk. Thin out the rest. Cut the branches you want to keep back to just above a healthy, outward- or upward-facing bud halfway down the branch. You will end up with a bowl-shaped tree. This is just one of the many pieces of old-school fruit tree pruning advice that may seem strange at first but is actually very helpful. 

Open center-pruning goes by several names but is identified by its lack of a central leader and the bowl-shaped result. Pruning trees this way requires more space between them, as they will grow out rather than up. So, if you need to plant multiple fruit trees, keep this in mind. The US Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology explains this process well in this YouTube video. 

This method is especially well-suited for stone fruits, like cherries or plums, which need lots of light and air circulation to prevent rot. For best results, in addition to the cuts we've already described, be sure to prune away any branches below 15 inches from the ground or above your top-most scaffold branch.

Over the first summer, you will want to keep an eye on upright shoots and head them off, removing them entirely once winter comes. By the end of the summer, you may want to choose three or four permanent scaffold limbs that are well spaced around the tree to form the foundation of your future fruits. You can cut these back by a quarter to help them harden and ultimately support more fruit. In the coming years, you will need to continue to carefully prune your trees to maintain this shape.