pruning

Pruning Young Citrus Trees

Daniel CooperCold Hardy, Pruning

pruning
Fernando Alferez showed growers how to prune young trees at the Cold-Hardy Citrus Field Day and Workshop in Quincy, Florida.

Pruning is an important management tactic that cold-hardy citrus growers need to implement, especially during the early stages of tree development.

Fernando Alferez, a University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) citrus horticulturist, discussed pruning during the Cold-Hardy Citrus Field Day and Workshop in Quincy on Oct. 1.

“Pruning is important because it will give the tree the right size that we need to produce the best possible fruit in terms of internal and external quality,” Alferez said. “By pruning, we open the canopy, and we let fruit, once it’s produced, to have better aeration and better light penetration inside the canopy.”

During the event’s field tour, Alferez demonstrated pruning techniques on young trees growing at the UF/IFAS North Florida Research and Education Center. He explained what citrus growers should consider before making a cut.

“Especially with young trees, we need to produce a structure in the tree that consists of a main trunk and three or four scaffold branches that are going to contain or produce the branches that will yield the fruit,” Alferez said.

Growers also learned that pruning at the correct time of year is essential, especially in the cold-hardy region where sub-freezing can occur. Alferez stressed to growers that the practice must be performed in the spring after the threat of freezes has passed.

“Once you prune a tree, especially a young tree that is very vigorous and flushes frequently, if you have a late freeze, all of those new flushes will burn,” Alferez said.

He also noted that growers should sanitize their pruning clippers with bleach solution after each tree or every couple of trees. Some trees may have disease inoculum present that can be transmitted to another tree if tools are not sanitized.

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Clint Thompson

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