What are the shaping and pruning methods for pomegranate trees?
Strong sprouting ability of latent buds and high tolerance to pruning are the greatest characteristics of pomegranate. This creates favorable conditions for shaping, but the shortcoming is that its branches sprout readily, the tree shape easily becomes messy, and this affects ornamentation. To make pomegranate produce more flowers, more fruit, and beautiful form, some attention must be paid to pruning and shaping.
Pomegranates are broadly divided into three major categories: fruiting pomegranate, flowering pomegranate, and potted dwarf pomegranate. Pruning and shaping of pomegranate differ by variety. Based on our years of experience managing pomegranates, they are described as follows:
1. Fruiting pomegranate. It can be trained into a single-trunk round-headed canopy. Attention should be paid to highlighting the main trunk, and the upper branches should be trained into a naturally spreading form. Dead branches, diseased branches, dense branches, water sprouts, and root suckers should be removed promptly to facilitate ventilation and light penetration, and this can reduce nutrient consumption and help fruiting. During pruning and shaping, spring shoots should not be shortened, because the terminal flower buds on spring shoots have a relatively high fruit-setting rate. In addition, attention should be paid to appropriate fruit thinning to help concentrate nutrients, making the fruit larger and reducing fruit drop.
2. Flowering pomegranate. It is not pruned; 3-5 side branches can be retained and trained into multiple clustered forms or a low flat-topped canopy. During management, remove dead branches and weak branches at any time. If it does not bloom by the flowering period, cut off the terminal buds to inhibit the plant from growing indefinitely. This can promote the production of new lateral buds. After this pruning, flower buds can appear one week later and continue to bloom. After flowering, promptly cut off faded flowers and spent branches that have already bloomed, so as to facilitate the growth of new branches and bloom again. If it is not pruned after flowering, the flowering branches will gradually grow taller and affect the tree shape, and both branches and flowers will be less vigorous. In the third year, the flowering pomegranate should have its old branches shortened, and all branches from three years ago should be cut off for a thorough renewal.
3. Potted pomegranate. During the peak growth season, according to ornamental characteristics, pinch and prune multiple times, and train it into various artistic forms such as a spherical shape and a single-trunk low flat-topped shape, so as to achieve a beautiful tree shape and promote the quantity of flowers and fruit.
4. Precautions during the shaping and pruning of pomegranate
1. In spring, remove dead branches, diseased branches, weak branches, water sprouts, and so on that have overwintered, and retain vigorous branches and the canopy shape, to help promote more new branches, more flowering, and more fruiting. When seedlings are 10 cm tall, begin pinching the tips multiple times to promote branching and achieve a full canopy width.
2. When pruning, pay attention to keeping outer branches and not inner ones, keeping vertical ones and not horizontal ones, and the cut should be left facing outward.
3. The repeated targets of pruning should be water sprouts and root-crown suckers, because water sprouts sprout from latent buds in the cortex of the main trunk or large lateral main branches. They grow vigorously and grow upright or obliquely upward, but their tissue is often overly nourished and soft, making it difficult to differentiate flower buds, and they interfere with the tree shape. Root-crown suckers sprout from the underground root crown, and their growth is faster than that of canopy branches, but most of them only consume nutrients and do not achieve the cultivation purpose.