Our cherry fruit set was sparse this year--we got about 2 quarts of North Star cherries from 12 trees and zero sweet cherries from our one Bing and one Rainier sweet cherry. I would like to improve our crop for next year and am wondering whether summer pruning now could help initiate fruit bud formation.
I think the most of the trees are still young; trunk diameter is <3" and they are about 6-8' tall. The Rainier is the exception, with a 6" trunk and a height of 15'. I pruned out the most offensive branches in the winter, but did little to thin other branches, not knowing how cherries fruit, and wanting to avoid over-pruning my first year. Now, in the summer, I have noticed that the canopies are dense and have marked some interior branches for removal, using Phillips' book and the pruning concepts thread on this forum as a guide.
Is now a good time to prune these trees? Is this the best way to try to improve next year's crop, or is my time better spent with another strategy?
Heather Coiner
Little Hat Creek Farm
Zone 7a, Roseland, VA
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2014 03:10PM by Michael Phillips.