Pruning
Neil Barraclough, 23 January at 21:40 ·
A question for our knowledgeable folk, should we prune apples in summer or winter? The rest of us can put in their two bob's worth too.
Pat Uber I do both, bit of a hair cut in summer of lanky branches, one tree at a time when the animals are hungry and a decent prune (to the best of my ability) in winter. Not exactly a knowledgeable reply but makes sense to me and helps when pasture is in short supply.
23 January at 21:57 · · 2
DeeMay Kerr Peter Cundall claimed in the Weekly Times a few weeks ago to prune after fruiting more summery weather that winter. he quoted a book from France which was published in the 1920's (maybe) aqnd that is always how fruit trees were pruned. Pruning in summer sets the tree for freit, prune in winter sets the tree for branch growth. We have always pruned in winter but will be trying this new way this year.
23 January at 22:00 · · 7
Ben Waite Mostly summer. A vigorous tree will get a few goings over at my house, between November and March.
None that heavy though. If it can be bent or tied to do something useful, that is preferable.
23 January at 22:25 · · 1
Lois Lincoln Our Apple trees are still only small so still trying to get their shape right, however apples fruit between November & July so that creates a problem, early apples I would prune after the fruit is taken off through the season or on late fruiters I would cut back any weak or thin branches and tidy up in summer only cutting back to where the fruit is, then prune as necessary after fruiting, then again I'm only learning. Bernie
23 January at 22:45 · · 1
Anita Hensen this is the first year that I have pruned considerably in summer (so I could get the netting over easier) so I guess I will see... Depends on whether you are asking the knowledgable or the rest...
23 January at 22:45 · · 1
Lois Lincoln What Peter Cundall said would be right for most stone fruit, I prune all the stone fruit ASAP after the fruit is d, I also take off any water shoots or long growth while the fruit is still on the trees. Bernie
23 January at 22:59 · · 1
Emily Maher I read an article on Woodbridge Nursery website about summer pruning. I'll link it when Im on a pc. I think the rationales were: keeps trees manageable size (related to above comment that winter pruning tells trees to grow grow grow), directs tree's energy into fruit, but also keeps the very young fruit shaded.
23 January at 23:01 · · 2
Emily Maher PS I am neither knowledgeable nor experienced! Just reading up a lot in preparation for planting this year.
23 January at 23:03 · · 1
Marie Casanova I prune early in the season to promote growth, say for an espalier, otherwise waiting til at least after the spring flush for a tidy and winter for bigger cuts.
23 January at 23:04 · · 1
Julian Smith My experience with our older apples(40+ years) seems to indicate that a summer prune stalls the fruiting for at least one year, and then they get back on track. However if I do both a summer and a winter prune on them, then they flower very poorly and take at least 2-3 to settle down again. This is replicated if I only do a winter prune. The younger apples(anything planted within the last 5 years) respond well to light summer pruning and modest winter pruning - they grow and flower well and evenly, and seem to harbour less disease. Their fruit is also much larger than the older trees that have been pruned heavily. This is different again though on espaliered trees, which seem to go like the clappers regardless of when I prune them, and how hard. Any help?
23 January at 23:17 · · 4
Lois Lincoln Hi Julian Smith My parents had a Granny (72 years) & Johnny (65 years) I'm sure dad only pruned them when they were bare which would have been winter & they fruited every year without fail, some thing to remember is I'm sure the Granny is a spur bearer and the Johnny maybe a mix of spur & tip bearing, so time of pruning is more critical with a tip bearer I guess , I'm going to try and stick to spur bearers if possible. Bernie
24 January at 00:42 · · 1
Neil Barraclough As a novice pruner I'm going to ask what would be expected to happen if I pruned the tip bearers in winter and the spur bearers in summer/autumn, at least the earlier spur bearers after fruiting and the later ones with fruit on them?
24 January at 06:16 ·
Cody Campbell The healthiest option is winter.
Make sure you tar the wounds.
24 January at 06:58 · · 1
Lynne Rochford
Jim always prunes ours in both winter & summer, but with summer pruning I think the fruit becomes a little more exposed to the sun, and in my opinion, would benefit from a little shadecloth to protect the fruit in extreme conditions.
We don't seem to notice any difference in the amount of fruit they produce. Please note: all our fruit trees are espaliered, so that would probably make some difference to how much pruning is needed.
24 January at 07:13 ·
Carolyn Gemmell Lets look at the merits of minimal pruning and not pruning too. After a light prune for shape, eg. only removing inward facing growth at planting and in the first 2 years summer and winter, I didn't prune a Red delicious, Granny smith, and Johnathan for the next ten years, all produced prolifically, every year, the red del on spurs on a stable narrow upright tree 2 mts tall, the granny was a bit larger and had a spreading canopy but was always laden to the ground with clusters of 5 large apples on the ends of long springy tips, similar was the Jonathan, a smaller tree overall than the granny, mostly 3 fruit on the tips and a few singles on spurs. My grandmother had a commercial (small) scale apple orchard in Portland (south west coast Victoria) with Cox's Orange pippins and Gravenstine's (in the 50s to the 70s) she pruned very little and instilled in me a minimal pruning approach. I have over 50 apples between 1 and 3 years in my new Food Forest, all are receiving the same treatment, the minimal to no pruning approach, I am fast tracking them to maturity by allowing them to grow at their own pace ( influenced by their rootstock) with the theory that once they reach maturity unhindered they go into fruit producing mode instead of constantly battling to grow branches that are continually being d , often arbitrarily by people with a belief that all fruit trees must be pruned! (Its not true, they don't need to be) My 2 bob !
24 January at 07:36 ·
Kym Stroud Smith Roadside trees and old homestead trees that receive zero attention except perhaps from a few birds always seem laden with fruit. I would think the rootstock , or lack thereof from seedling plants is a big factor ?
24 January at 07:24 ·
Robert Millet I have heard and read that summer pruning (directly after fruit harvest) is the best time to prune because it gives the trees a longer time to heal the wounds. Any other reasons?
24 January at 13:52 ·
Kym Stroud Smith Depends on the growth habit you are training the tree to, mostly.
24 January at 14:03 ·
Neville Burley I find if you use more weights, less pruning is needed in summer by far and then only shape pruning is required in winter which is far easier anyway. I figure let nature work for you don't fight it so much.
24 January at 15:59 · ·
Susana South West Victoria If size of tree doesn't matter then I agree with Carolyn, my two big apples were unpruned for ten years when i brought the place but i wanted to net so tried to prune then down.this produced lots of water shoots and soon the tree was back to same size , didn't affect fruit on one (golden Delicious) but the other (unknown- maybe red Del) has little fruit this year after a heavy winter prune. I am hoping to build a fruit cage around them so need some control of their size but so far they are winning.
25 January at 09:28 ·
Ben Waite Mine are more likely to not fruit from overbearing the previous year than anything else.
You can prune as much as you like and still get a good crop, as espaliers demonstrate. You just need to be making the right cuts to promote fruiting wood.
When I was shown how to summer prune I was told to cut back to a few buds. This may be appropriate for stonefruit, I believe, but it isn't great for apples IMO. Now I'm more likely to bend down a side branch to horizontal to stop the growth and pinch out the tip. If usually forms fruit buds towards the base, then I'll cut it back a bit, or leave that step till winter.
Most of my apples are on semi dwarfs at close spacing though, so it is important to keep them in line. I have a dozen or so full size cider trees in a row in my paddock. They are receiving a little pruning / shaping to get them started but after that they will do what they will.
25 January at 09:42 ·
Neville Burley My point exactly Ben Waite if we bend the wood rather than pruning it over summer we make the tree produce fruiting buds more than growth ones and therefore when pruned in winter we can take less off as it will set fruit and bend it further and then thin the fruit to get plenty of large well grown fruit to eat and control the trees growth
25 January at 10:21 · · 1
Jet Wilson not sure what the outcome of this discussion is. My apples supposedly only grow to 2.5 m high (from flemmings) Heaps of fruit only 2 yrs in ground. Gala, had to thin off heaps because weighing down branches only as thick as my little finger. Red Fuji , beautiful size apples, little thinning; these were low in the tree which looks twice the size of the Gala. Red fuji had some sort of holes near underside of apple and core ( black) is this coddling moth.
27 January at 08:06 ·
Jet Wilson I have yet to spray mt apples with anything. Also have very small 3 stem Granny smith, 2yrs in ground; (another flemmings to 2.5m). Had too much fruit on weighed branches down below where they fork from trunk. I thinned all but 3 off. Got nice small apples. What should I be doing this season to move forward. Re pruning and spraying if any?
27 January at 08:09 ·
Kym Stroud Smith interesting to me also is the source of the tree stock. i have a few trees purchased from locally hardware stores/nurseries etc and none of them are doing anything, except the plums. We've had a handful of plums in 5 years. No nectarines, peaches and the apples are just useless. Yet trees obtained from specialist suppliers are doing amazingly well. I think I'll just rip out all the others..... seems a waste of space and water. Coddling moth still in one of my older trees, despite running chickens and ducks under the trees.
27 January at 08:12 ·
Marie Casanova I've been pruning hard on my young orchard because of the work required to net. I do think some of the trees would be best weighed down. Is it too late to start now? they are all 4 yrs old.
I've got fruit on unpruned trees but none yet from the heavily pruned pears, or plum. I had orchard intended to have the whole lot caged to a couple of metres but I don't know that I will be able to afford it!
27 January at 08:17 ·
Petethe Permie What a tin of worms you will open here Neil, pruning is one fruit subject where almost everyone has an opinion, we have run a full day class in winter vs summer pruning twice per year here at Telopea Mtn for last 8 years, summer is for fruiting winter is for tree-shaping to put it in one tiny sentence
7 February at 19:40 · · 2
Willem Dam Both is possibilities, but I prefer summer because of frostchances. Or spring
8 February at 15:27 ·
Cheryl Wedding I like to summer prune as I can give the trimmings to my goats as fodder at this time of the year it is the only green they get. I mainly do any upward shoots. Avoid doing my apricot in winter.
10 February at 09:53 ·
Susana South West Victoria This pear tree and apple both were Winter pruned and you can see the verdant growth of water shoots on both.i am going to summer prune as soon as they are harvested this year and also tie some of the apple branches down.
10 February at 10:42 ·
Susana South West Victoria The pear was very hard pruned and has not even looked back a bit, the apple has a slightly lighter crop this year.The apple had mainly a medium haircut as I couldn't reach the highest branches. I want to cage in the chook pen that contains both apples eventually, so am trying to bring it down by at least a metre. So far I must say the trees are winning this battle.
10 February at 10:46 ·
Craig Castree I was taught that winter pruning encourages vigour and summer pruning inhibits vigour so it was regarded that on young trees to three years old you pruned in winter to get them to shape and height about 7 feet tall, and then summer prune straight after picking fruit. If the varieties were late or very late I was also taught to bend and snap a tall slender branch but leave it in place to shade the fruit then clean it up in winter, with always the three d's to take off (dead,diseased,and damaged) as for the fruit getting scorched I learned a neat trick in bending and snapping the long vertical water shoots and snapping them but leaving them in place to shade the fruit and when picking was finished clean them up. As for the tip bearing trees by the third year you will have pretty much pruned the tree to have lots of tip bearing branches with Spurs on the ends of them and any summer pruning will allow the height to be maintained without encouraging vigorous growth spurts, as for the branch spur bearers I use summer pruning to turn a lot the that skyward growth into fruit Spurs, if you chase a water shoot up about three buds from where it started I under cut the bud above it hence causing a little dieback as it is too far from the bud above for the sap to be drawn there to heal it the tree reacts to the die back by setting a fruit spur rather than growth if it had have been pruned close to the bud so that the cut heals properly.
10 February at 17:12 ·
Susana South West Victoria interesting and I will try that, thanks for sharing Craig Castree The fence in the bottom pic is two metres high - just to give an idea of how much I need to bring the tree down- I want to add some height within the cage but not that much ! LOL .... at most 1 metre I think.
10 February at 15:07 ·
Pat Uber yep, thanks Craig!
10 February at 15:20 ·
Lois Lincoln Hi Craig Castree what a great way you have explained the difference, especially in regards tip & spur bearers which probably suits apples mainly. Bernie.
10 February at 17:05 ·
Emily Maher I don't really understand tip bearing. Is there a diagram that can explain it to me? smile emoticon
10 February at 18:27 ·
Craig Castree Emily tip bearing fruit spurs are common on apples unlike lateral bearing Spurs which occur along branches they are the little short stumpy fat fluffy little buds where the tree flowers and fruit from. Tip bearing look the same in that they are fat thicker than any normal bud and are fluffy to look at it is worth getting to know where both are on your trees as you sure do not want to be pruning these off as you will get no fruit if you do.they occur in the end of branches or preferably branch lets that way you get more fruit
10 February at 18:42 ·
A question for our knowledgeable folk, should we prune apples in summer or winter? The rest of us can put in their two bob's worth too.
Pat Uber I do both, bit of a hair cut in summer of lanky branches, one tree at a time when the animals are hungry and a decent prune (to the best of my ability) in winter. Not exactly a knowledgeable reply but makes sense to me and helps when pasture is in short supply.
23 January at 21:57 · · 2
DeeMay Kerr Peter Cundall claimed in the Weekly Times a few weeks ago to prune after fruiting more summery weather that winter. he quoted a book from France which was published in the 1920's (maybe) aqnd that is always how fruit trees were pruned. Pruning in summer sets the tree for freit, prune in winter sets the tree for branch growth. We have always pruned in winter but will be trying this new way this year.
23 January at 22:00 · · 7
Ben Waite Mostly summer. A vigorous tree will get a few goings over at my house, between November and March.
None that heavy though. If it can be bent or tied to do something useful, that is preferable.
23 January at 22:25 · · 1
Lois Lincoln Our Apple trees are still only small so still trying to get their shape right, however apples fruit between November & July so that creates a problem, early apples I would prune after the fruit is taken off through the season or on late fruiters I would cut back any weak or thin branches and tidy up in summer only cutting back to where the fruit is, then prune as necessary after fruiting, then again I'm only learning. Bernie
23 January at 22:45 · · 1
Anita Hensen this is the first year that I have pruned considerably in summer (so I could get the netting over easier) so I guess I will see... Depends on whether you are asking the knowledgable or the rest...
23 January at 22:45 · · 1
Lois Lincoln What Peter Cundall said would be right for most stone fruit, I prune all the stone fruit ASAP after the fruit is d, I also take off any water shoots or long growth while the fruit is still on the trees. Bernie
23 January at 22:59 · · 1
Emily Maher I read an article on Woodbridge Nursery website about summer pruning. I'll link it when Im on a pc. I think the rationales were: keeps trees manageable size (related to above comment that winter pruning tells trees to grow grow grow), directs tree's energy into fruit, but also keeps the very young fruit shaded.
23 January at 23:01 · · 2
Emily Maher PS I am neither knowledgeable nor experienced! Just reading up a lot in preparation for planting this year.
23 January at 23:03 · · 1
Marie Casanova I prune early in the season to promote growth, say for an espalier, otherwise waiting til at least after the spring flush for a tidy and winter for bigger cuts.
23 January at 23:04 · · 1
Julian Smith My experience with our older apples(40+ years) seems to indicate that a summer prune stalls the fruiting for at least one year, and then they get back on track. However if I do both a summer and a winter prune on them, then they flower very poorly and take at least 2-3 to settle down again. This is replicated if I only do a winter prune. The younger apples(anything planted within the last 5 years) respond well to light summer pruning and modest winter pruning - they grow and flower well and evenly, and seem to harbour less disease. Their fruit is also much larger than the older trees that have been pruned heavily. This is different again though on espaliered trees, which seem to go like the clappers regardless of when I prune them, and how hard. Any help?
23 January at 23:17 · · 4
Lois Lincoln Hi Julian Smith My parents had a Granny (72 years) & Johnny (65 years) I'm sure dad only pruned them when they were bare which would have been winter & they fruited every year without fail, some thing to remember is I'm sure the Granny is a spur bearer and the Johnny maybe a mix of spur & tip bearing, so time of pruning is more critical with a tip bearer I guess , I'm going to try and stick to spur bearers if possible. Bernie
24 January at 00:42 · · 1
Neil Barraclough As a novice pruner I'm going to ask what would be expected to happen if I pruned the tip bearers in winter and the spur bearers in summer/autumn, at least the earlier spur bearers after fruiting and the later ones with fruit on them?
24 January at 06:16 ·
Cody Campbell The healthiest option is winter.
Make sure you tar the wounds.
24 January at 06:58 · · 1
Lynne Rochford
Jim always prunes ours in both winter & summer, but with summer pruning I think the fruit becomes a little more exposed to the sun, and in my opinion, would benefit from a little shadecloth to protect the fruit in extreme conditions.
We don't seem to notice any difference in the amount of fruit they produce. Please note: all our fruit trees are espaliered, so that would probably make some difference to how much pruning is needed.
24 January at 07:13 ·
Carolyn Gemmell Lets look at the merits of minimal pruning and not pruning too. After a light prune for shape, eg. only removing inward facing growth at planting and in the first 2 years summer and winter, I didn't prune a Red delicious, Granny smith, and Johnathan for the next ten years, all produced prolifically, every year, the red del on spurs on a stable narrow upright tree 2 mts tall, the granny was a bit larger and had a spreading canopy but was always laden to the ground with clusters of 5 large apples on the ends of long springy tips, similar was the Jonathan, a smaller tree overall than the granny, mostly 3 fruit on the tips and a few singles on spurs. My grandmother had a commercial (small) scale apple orchard in Portland (south west coast Victoria) with Cox's Orange pippins and Gravenstine's (in the 50s to the 70s) she pruned very little and instilled in me a minimal pruning approach. I have over 50 apples between 1 and 3 years in my new Food Forest, all are receiving the same treatment, the minimal to no pruning approach, I am fast tracking them to maturity by allowing them to grow at their own pace ( influenced by their rootstock) with the theory that once they reach maturity unhindered they go into fruit producing mode instead of constantly battling to grow branches that are continually being d , often arbitrarily by people with a belief that all fruit trees must be pruned! (Its not true, they don't need to be) My 2 bob !
24 January at 07:36 ·
Kym Stroud Smith Roadside trees and old homestead trees that receive zero attention except perhaps from a few birds always seem laden with fruit. I would think the rootstock , or lack thereof from seedling plants is a big factor ?
24 January at 07:24 ·
Robert Millet I have heard and read that summer pruning (directly after fruit harvest) is the best time to prune because it gives the trees a longer time to heal the wounds. Any other reasons?
24 January at 13:52 ·
Kym Stroud Smith Depends on the growth habit you are training the tree to, mostly.
24 January at 14:03 ·
Neville Burley I find if you use more weights, less pruning is needed in summer by far and then only shape pruning is required in winter which is far easier anyway. I figure let nature work for you don't fight it so much.
24 January at 15:59 · ·
Susana South West Victoria If size of tree doesn't matter then I agree with Carolyn, my two big apples were unpruned for ten years when i brought the place but i wanted to net so tried to prune then down.this produced lots of water shoots and soon the tree was back to same size , didn't affect fruit on one (golden Delicious) but the other (unknown- maybe red Del) has little fruit this year after a heavy winter prune. I am hoping to build a fruit cage around them so need some control of their size but so far they are winning.
25 January at 09:28 ·
Ben Waite Mine are more likely to not fruit from overbearing the previous year than anything else.
You can prune as much as you like and still get a good crop, as espaliers demonstrate. You just need to be making the right cuts to promote fruiting wood.
When I was shown how to summer prune I was told to cut back to a few buds. This may be appropriate for stonefruit, I believe, but it isn't great for apples IMO. Now I'm more likely to bend down a side branch to horizontal to stop the growth and pinch out the tip. If usually forms fruit buds towards the base, then I'll cut it back a bit, or leave that step till winter.
Most of my apples are on semi dwarfs at close spacing though, so it is important to keep them in line. I have a dozen or so full size cider trees in a row in my paddock. They are receiving a little pruning / shaping to get them started but after that they will do what they will.
25 January at 09:42 ·
Neville Burley My point exactly Ben Waite if we bend the wood rather than pruning it over summer we make the tree produce fruiting buds more than growth ones and therefore when pruned in winter we can take less off as it will set fruit and bend it further and then thin the fruit to get plenty of large well grown fruit to eat and control the trees growth
25 January at 10:21 · · 1
Jet Wilson not sure what the outcome of this discussion is. My apples supposedly only grow to 2.5 m high (from flemmings) Heaps of fruit only 2 yrs in ground. Gala, had to thin off heaps because weighing down branches only as thick as my little finger. Red Fuji , beautiful size apples, little thinning; these were low in the tree which looks twice the size of the Gala. Red fuji had some sort of holes near underside of apple and core ( black) is this coddling moth.
27 January at 08:06 ·
Jet Wilson I have yet to spray mt apples with anything. Also have very small 3 stem Granny smith, 2yrs in ground; (another flemmings to 2.5m). Had too much fruit on weighed branches down below where they fork from trunk. I thinned all but 3 off. Got nice small apples. What should I be doing this season to move forward. Re pruning and spraying if any?
27 January at 08:09 ·
Kym Stroud Smith interesting to me also is the source of the tree stock. i have a few trees purchased from locally hardware stores/nurseries etc and none of them are doing anything, except the plums. We've had a handful of plums in 5 years. No nectarines, peaches and the apples are just useless. Yet trees obtained from specialist suppliers are doing amazingly well. I think I'll just rip out all the others..... seems a waste of space and water. Coddling moth still in one of my older trees, despite running chickens and ducks under the trees.
27 January at 08:12 ·
Marie Casanova I've been pruning hard on my young orchard because of the work required to net. I do think some of the trees would be best weighed down. Is it too late to start now? they are all 4 yrs old.
I've got fruit on unpruned trees but none yet from the heavily pruned pears, or plum. I had orchard intended to have the whole lot caged to a couple of metres but I don't know that I will be able to afford it!
27 January at 08:17 ·
Petethe Permie What a tin of worms you will open here Neil, pruning is one fruit subject where almost everyone has an opinion, we have run a full day class in winter vs summer pruning twice per year here at Telopea Mtn for last 8 years, summer is for fruiting winter is for tree-shaping to put it in one tiny sentence
7 February at 19:40 · · 2
Willem Dam Both is possibilities, but I prefer summer because of frostchances. Or spring
8 February at 15:27 ·
Cheryl Wedding I like to summer prune as I can give the trimmings to my goats as fodder at this time of the year it is the only green they get. I mainly do any upward shoots. Avoid doing my apricot in winter.
10 February at 09:53 ·
Susana South West Victoria This pear tree and apple both were Winter pruned and you can see the verdant growth of water shoots on both.i am going to summer prune as soon as they are harvested this year and also tie some of the apple branches down.
10 February at 10:42 ·
Susana South West Victoria The pear was very hard pruned and has not even looked back a bit, the apple has a slightly lighter crop this year.The apple had mainly a medium haircut as I couldn't reach the highest branches. I want to cage in the chook pen that contains both apples eventually, so am trying to bring it down by at least a metre. So far I must say the trees are winning this battle.
10 February at 10:46 ·
Craig Castree I was taught that winter pruning encourages vigour and summer pruning inhibits vigour so it was regarded that on young trees to three years old you pruned in winter to get them to shape and height about 7 feet tall, and then summer prune straight after picking fruit. If the varieties were late or very late I was also taught to bend and snap a tall slender branch but leave it in place to shade the fruit then clean it up in winter, with always the three d's to take off (dead,diseased,and damaged) as for the fruit getting scorched I learned a neat trick in bending and snapping the long vertical water shoots and snapping them but leaving them in place to shade the fruit and when picking was finished clean them up. As for the tip bearing trees by the third year you will have pretty much pruned the tree to have lots of tip bearing branches with Spurs on the ends of them and any summer pruning will allow the height to be maintained without encouraging vigorous growth spurts, as for the branch spur bearers I use summer pruning to turn a lot the that skyward growth into fruit Spurs, if you chase a water shoot up about three buds from where it started I under cut the bud above it hence causing a little dieback as it is too far from the bud above for the sap to be drawn there to heal it the tree reacts to the die back by setting a fruit spur rather than growth if it had have been pruned close to the bud so that the cut heals properly.
10 February at 17:12 ·
Susana South West Victoria interesting and I will try that, thanks for sharing Craig Castree The fence in the bottom pic is two metres high - just to give an idea of how much I need to bring the tree down- I want to add some height within the cage but not that much ! LOL .... at most 1 metre I think.
10 February at 15:07 ·
Pat Uber yep, thanks Craig!
10 February at 15:20 ·
Lois Lincoln Hi Craig Castree what a great way you have explained the difference, especially in regards tip & spur bearers which probably suits apples mainly. Bernie.
10 February at 17:05 ·
Emily Maher I don't really understand tip bearing. Is there a diagram that can explain it to me? smile emoticon
10 February at 18:27 ·
Craig Castree Emily tip bearing fruit spurs are common on apples unlike lateral bearing Spurs which occur along branches they are the little short stumpy fat fluffy little buds where the tree flowers and fruit from. Tip bearing look the same in that they are fat thicker than any normal bud and are fluffy to look at it is worth getting to know where both are on your trees as you sure do not want to be pruning these off as you will get no fruit if you do.they occur in the end of branches or preferably branch lets that way you get more fruit
10 February at 18:42 ·