By: Carlos J. Tapia T. Agricultural Engineer M.Sc. Specialist in cherry production. Technical Director of Avium and co-founder of SmartCherry.
Pruning is a fundamental task for the maintenance, renewal and optimal management of a cherry orchard and is a strategy that, when used correctly, allows the productive potential of an orchard to be achieved, depending on the time of year and under what conditions and objectives it is carried out.
It is always necessary to be able to formalize and remember management concepts, especially in pruning and load regulation tasks. The guidelines and instructions generated in different situations often lack technical precision when giving guidelines or in simple field analyses.
Here is a brief summary, with personal definitions and examples of the most common procedures used in the management of the different structures.
1. Renewal pruning.
The main objective of this work is to renew the “permanent” structure of the plant, those branches that generate excessive shade and are no longer protagonists in production due to the lack of fruit centers.
Many times these structures are young, “suckers” with excess vigor that will not be used for a future productive branch (Photos 1 and 2).
The idea is always to be able to “eliminate” this type of material with a base “plug” to be able to accommodate future renovations from there and not lose that point in the primary structure of the plant (Photos 3 and 4).
2. Branch pruning
The concept of pruning is defined as the intervention of one-year-old wood in winter, or less than one year in the case of green wood in spring/summer (Photos 6 and 7). Pruning aims to promote vegetative development just behind the cutting section.
This growth brings with it a “second wind” in the development of the new vegetative section, avoiding the endarden premature.
It is still heard that this intervention of one-year-old branches promotes “browning” but this concept is wrong since it is exactly the opposite.
3. Pruning or thinning branches.
The concept of pruning or thinning branches involves intervening in sections of branches that are two years old or older. The main objective of this is to adjust the load early so that fruit centers can be removed when they are in excess.
This intervention is carried out just after a year-end ring or in a section that generates self-supporting branches (Photos 9 and 10).
The concept of self-supporting branches, which I personally like a lot, considers that the fruit contained in that section of branches is supported by its structure, ensuring vegetative development and generating a more regular result in terms of balance in fruit size and composition of sugars and nutrients (Photos 11 and 12).
4. Thinning or bud extinction
Within the concept of “thinning” of structures, the thinning or extinction of buds, also called “Chinese thinning” (Photos 13, 14 and 15) is by far the most effective when compared to thinning of flowers and fruits that have already set.
The removal of flower buds is a strategy that not only aims to reduce the fruit load, but is also the best strategy to ensure the vegetative balance of the plant and even the safest model to recover stressed plants and in a vicious circle of permanent weakness.
The intensity of bud thinning in terms of bud removal will depend on the results of the bud fertility analysis as the objective tool that allows an accurate decision to be made. This is also associated with the fertility of the variety, rootstock, training system and also the vigor or weakness of the combination.
5.Thinning or extinguishing of darts
In other fruit species, the elimination or extinction of fruit centers is a common and successful practice. However, in cherry trees, the extinction of shoots becomes a huge mistake when defining the thinning or load regulation strategy.
The dart itself is the fruit structure that is renewable year after year, since it contains at least and commonly one vegetative bud that is responsible for generating leaves, and in its axils it houses new flower buds every season (Photos 16, 17 and 18).
For this reason, the removal of a shoot is the irreversible loss of a fruiting point. The only extinction of shoots that is justified could be that in a section of the change of year ring in exchange for carrying out a cut or reduction in this area.
It is important to remember that any type of pruning or thinning strategy chosen must be accompanied by an orchard that is in optimal phytosanitary conditions, that is, a healthy orchard, with all its programs up to date and of course the decision must be in line with the productive objectives sought.
