Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 186, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1911 — PRUNING MATURE APPLE TREES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PRUNING MATURE APPLE TREES

By C. G. WOODBURY

Horticulturist, Purdue Experiment Station Purdue University Agricultural Extension

It was shown in the last pruning lesson how wrongly made pruning wounds open the way for the entrance of disease which either klUs the tree outright or shortens its life by many years. The main idea brought out was to make dean, close cuts and to paint over large wounds. . The best time for pruning is one of the questions which the orchard owner most often asks. The answer depends upon the purpose for which the pruning is done. The most common advantage gained by judicious pruning of mature apple trees is the

An apple tree with a well-formed head. The scaffold limbs are well distributed and the cratches relieving of competition between branch and branch. A mature apple tree should not be looker* upon as an individual being, such as a horse or cow, the entire body of which suffers if any part of it is removed or injured. The tree rather represents an aggregation of competing units, a colony of individuals all striving for their own development, regardless of the effect upon their neighbora The bud is the unit, rather than the tree. Every bud ana every branch devel-

oped from a bud, is engaged in a fierce struggle with neighboring buds and neighboring branches, for access to the light and the air which are essential to their development In this struggle many succumb. Many more are nearly overpowered by stronger neighbors and lead a half-starved, feeble existence. It is the business of the fruit grower to select those buds in the young tree or those branches of the mature tree whose preservation will benefit the whole tree. Thus the relieving of competition, the pruning away of the unfit, and the feeble, is a benefit to the whole collection of units which make up the tree. Each one which remains can and Should have free access io light rmd air. Every one should be removed, whether large or small, which is poorly placed and which is not fit to survive and hear frftit The best time to do this annual

Don’t allow the head to develop In this way. Such overcrowding can bo prevented by correct early pruning, pruning which is so necessary in every mature orchard is probably into winter and early spring. Some good fruit growers defer the work until after growth starts tn the spring, thinking that the wounds heal a little more rapidly after the sap begins to, flow actively. In a large orchard, however, there are so many other things to do after growth begins in the way of spraying, cultivation, oto, that it is well to have the Bruning of the way.