How to Prune Cherry Trees for Maximum Production

hello everyone this is Jack well in this video I'm going to cover how to prune cherry trees and you must prune your cherry trees in a very specific way to grow really healthy trees that get the maximum production out of your trees because if you don't prune them right they'll just keep on going straight up and up and up they will get really spindly and they will be susceptible to breaking in the wind and you will not get much production out of them either so I'm going to cover how to prune your cherry trees when you first plant them the first year second year third year and so on so let's get started now you can buy your cherry trees as bare root or as potted trees not the best and most economical way to buy your cherry trees is to buy beer or trees and when you buy them and plant them they will look like this they might have just one single Branch coming up or they might have two so that's where the pruning Begins the very first time when you plant them and to begin pruning you must disinfect your pruning shears to disinfect your pruning shears you can use rubbing alcohol and apply it on the blade of your pruning Shear or you can use a flaming torch and burn just the blade part of your pruning here this will disinfect the pruning Shear by killing of any bacteria fungus or mole that might be on your pruning shears here Lily now the best time to prune your cherry trees is in late winter or early spring right after you get all the rains and you're not expecting too much rain or moisture and before the tree starts to Bud out even if the tree is starting to burn a little bit like this it is okay to prune that tray now another hemisphere the best time to prune your tree is in February March or April depending on your Zone and in southern hemisphere is plus six months that is August September or October so when you first plant your Barrel cherry tree it's most likely to look like this just one single trunk going straight up if you leave it like this it's just going to keep on going straight up so we must prawn this about 18 inches from that ground it has about one and a half feet from the ground and that's about right here you might also have a cherry tree that has two or three branches like this whereas this is a second breast that's growing out out of the main trunk as well you must make the cut about 12 to 18 inches above where the trees branching out however I do want a second Branch to create a lot more branches as well so I'm going to snip it right here otherwise these two will just keep on growing taller and taller now this will create a lot more branches if your tree only had one branch when you first planted it and you cut off that at 80 inches this is what you can expect your tree will look like it will have about three to four branches going straight up now we're going to snip each one of these 18 inches above our last cut foreign so this is what your tree will look like after one year of growth and pruning after one year here's another example of the tree one year after growth now pay close attention to that Branch coming out of the root zone right below the graph union now here's the graft union now any branches coming out of the rootstock below the graph Union they're called Suckers and we must remove these so I'm using my Sharp pruning shears and I'm just going to snip it off now anytime you see circles come out of the rootstock you must remove them because if you let them grow the fruit that bears on the branches that come with the rootstock might be totally different than the variety of fruit that you planted because the variety of the fruit is grafted on top of the rootstock the rootstock might be totally different it might not appear any food at all so basically each year we are not going to let our branches become Too Tall we're going to snip them right at about 18 inches from the last cut and have them create a lot more branches and also prune any branches that are going to towards the inside [Music] now they have an open wound like this especially on cherry trees it's a really good idea to apply the grafting compound right on the wound this will seal the cut and will prevent mold or fungus from infecting the trees the cherry trees are very susceptible to fungus so this step is highly recommended after two years of growth you can expect your tree to look like this and it's starting to take the shape of a tray so here's the cut I made when I first planted this tree and here's the cut one year after planting the tree and now we have a lot more growth so let's put on this as well so first of all we're going to prune away any branches that are growing horizontal to the ground so this must go remember to keep about quarter to half an inch of Branch from the trunk and now we're going to prune any branches that are going towards the inside of this tree we don't want the inside of the street to be crowded we want open canopy from the inside so let me remove this and also prune away any dead branches that you see now this one is also green horizontal to the ground so this must go and here's the dead branch that must go as well now three year after planting you can expect your tree to look like it is now here is when we made our cut when we first planted this tree here's the second cut after the first year here's the third cut after the second year so after three years of growth it's really looking like a tree and now we just gotta maintain it now after three years when the weather warms up and it's spring the tree will start producing flowers and you can actually expect to get cherries on the third year not too many you'll get some but after four years you'll get a lot of cherries now you must also select another variety of cherry tree to pollinate with while many varieties of sour cherries are self-pollinating a lot of varieties of sweet cherries need another tree for pollination so research the variety that you're growing and then find a variety of cherry that will pollinate with your tree now cherry trees produce fruit on all or wood so all the flowers that you see are on the wood or on the branches that grew last year so all the branches are going to grow this year we're not going to get any fruit out of them the best cherries are grown on wood there's about two to four years old so after three years of growth going into four or more years the pruning is very simple just top of the tree so that doesn't grow Too Tall and then snip off any branches that are growing towards each other or crisscrossing so keep your tree open and do not over prune your tree since Cherry is only produce on older wood if you over prune your tree that will cut down on the production so keep your tree bushy and let the tree produce a lot of branches and a lot of flowers and you'll get a lot of cherries and if you're interested in how to plant period trees I have a video right here that covers all the steps and I'll see you in another video

Channel: Daisy Creek Farms with Jag Singh

Views: 305,434

Keywords: grow, plant, garden, gardening, daisy creek farms, farm, farming, cherry trees, cherry farm, cherry farming, how to prune a cherry tree, how to prune fruit trees, how to train cherry, how to prune old cherry trees, cherry pruning guide, how to prune mature cherry, pruning cherries, prune cherry tree, how to prune a cherry, how to prune a cherry trees, prune cherry trees, how to prune cherry trees, pruning cherry

Id: HkikDQhyGZ8

Length: 6min 57sec (417 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 25 2023