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FeedThe 1-2-3 rule of pruning
Turn wood into fruit on apple and pear trees.
Two-year-old wood and young spurs produce the most and best Packham pears.
The largest and best quality apples and pears grow on two-year-old wood and young spurs. To develop two-year-old wood, prune trees according to the 1-2-3 rule of renewal pruning. This rule ensures that the fruiting wood remains young and productive. Your trees are as young as the fruiting wood. Using a pear tree as an example, here is how you use the 1-2-3 rule.
1. The 1 of the 1-2-3 rule refers to the one-year-old laterals, also called pencils. These laterals are 300 to 400 mm (12 to 16 inches) long and a little thinner than a pencil. The buds at the tips are often fruit buds (Figure 1). Never shorten these laterals. If you have too many, space them out and keep the ones that are horizontal and almost as thick as a pencil.
Remove the strong upright shoots and long laterals without fruit buds at the tips. These are nonproductive growth shoots. However, some pear varieties, such as Forelle and Beurre Bosc, often do not produce one-year-old laterals with fruit buds at the tips. If left untipped, these laterals will bud up in the second year.
Also remove the very thin laterals, because these will not produce the quality and sizes of fruit that the market wants.
About one-third of the renewal wood should be one year old.
(On young, nonbearing Bartlett and Forelle trees on Open Tatura [with 2,000 trees per hectare or 800 trees per acre], we have used Ethrel sprays in mid- and late summer to terminate extension growth of laterals. This method of vigor control often resulted in laterals setting terminal fruit buds. Ethrel was sprayed (without a wetting agent) at the rate of 300 to 700 millilitres per hectare (4 to 10 ounces per acre) three to five times. The differences in rates depended on the temperature in the orchard after spraying. A low rate was used when it was hot, and a high rate when it was cool. The active constituent of Ethrel was 480 grams per litre of ethephon.)
2. The 2 in 1-2-3 refers to fruiting wood that is now two years old. This two-year-old wood has had one or more pears at the tip last year and has now spurred up. The fruit bud at the tip has also grown one or two bourse shoots (Figure 2).
How you prune this two-year-old wood depends on the number of buds and the vigor of the trees. Here are two options:
• Cut back to the “ring.” This is the division between the one- and two-year-old wood. This cut is called the “ring” or “fertility” cut, because it improves fruit set (Figure 2, A).
• Cut deeper than the ring to reduce the number of fruit buds. Often you find differences in the fruitfulness of this wood on the same tree. Cut deeper when the wood is weaker (Figure 2, B).
About one-third of the renewal wood should be two years old.
3. The 3 in 1-2-3 refers to three-year-old wood which was cropped when two years old and sometimes one year old. Renew the three-year-old wood by cutting it back hard (Figure 3). This way you will generate new laterals, and the cycle starts again (Figure 4). You may leave some good young fruiting spurs on this three-year-old wood, but you must cut back hard to get new laterals.
About one-third of the renewal wood should be three years old.
Simple
The 1-2-3 rule of renewal pruning is simple and less expensive than spur pruning, and it ensures that your trees do not develop old, tired spurs that produce fruit of poor quality and size. This rule also avoids biennial bearing, provided there has been adequate cross-pollination.
The 1-2-3 rule is very effective if you keep your trees calm. Calm trees have dominant leaders that are not forked and have stubs and small secondary branches that carry the one-, two-, and three-year- old wood.
Van den Ende is a tree fruit consultant in Australia’s Goulburn Valley.
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Thank you for providing this pruning guide--much needed for many of us. However, I am a bit confused by part of the guide:
Rule 1 states "never shorten one-year old laterals." But then rule 3 refers to some wood that was cropped when it was one-year-old. And the branching in Figure 2 suggests that it was cropped as one-year-old-wood. Are there times when we should crop new wood?
The article says this 1-2-3 program works "if you keep your trees calm." Could we have more information on how to do this?
I believe some apples trees are tip bearing, while others are more spur-type bearing. Do we apply this 1-2-3 rule differently, depending on the type?
Many thanks for making this article available to all.
Marc
Marc,
Some pear varieties, such as Packham's Triumph, bear fruit on 1-yr-old wood, Others, such as Forelle, don't. The figures refer to Packham, which develops fruit buds at the terminal end of the 'pencil' or 'dart' (Fig. 1). This pencil cropped in the 2nd year (Fig. 2), and it also developed fruit buds further down the fruiting wood (Fig. 2). After this fruiting wood has been pruned (Fig.2) it is now 2 years old and very productive. After it has cropped (Fig. 3), it must be cut back (rule 3) and it will then generate new pencils, and the cycle starts again. If the 1-yr-old pencil has no fruit buds (Forelle), it must be left alone and will bud up in the 2nd year. This means that you have to wait one year and then apply rule 2 and then rule 3. Many apple varieties and Bartlett pear often have only a terminal fruit bud on 1-yr-old pencils, and the wood will bud up in the second year (see GFG Sept. 2008 page 20 for Bartlett). In that case you use the 'ring' cut (Fig. 2 A). Tip-bearing varieties can be made to spur up if you prune the young trees in summer and not in winter, and train more and prune less. Keep the hierarchy in your trees (GFG Dec. 2010 page 74), and only prune the trees in winter when they have become fruitful. Never head your trees in winter - always delay-head your trees in early summer. Once your trees are in the cropping mode, you can relax and continue renewing your fruiting wood according to the 1,2,3 rule of pruning.
Bas van den Ende.