Key Points and Detailed Methods for Pruning Young Pear Trees

For young pear trees, a single year without pruning and training will result in the loss of a reasonable tree shape and delay the arrival of the full fruiting period. With the promotion of fast-growing, early-fruiting, and high-yield cultivation techniques, shaping and pruning of young trees has become more important than pruning at any other stage. So how should shaping and pruning of young trees be carried out?

1. First, determine which tree form to train.

There are many tree forms for pear trees, commonly including the tiered form, the modified central leader form, the single-trunk form, the espalier form, the open-center form, and the small-canopy fast-growing delayed open-center form. At present, the most commonly used is the small-canopy fast-growing delayed open-center form. Its shape is: trunk height 30 cm, three main branches, one central leader, the three main branches distributed obliquely in a triangle, with 1-2 sub-main branches trained on each main branch, and several fruiting branch groups retained on the central leader, with tree height below 2.5 m.

2. Shaping:

Before shaping, you must hold in your mind the appearance of the tree form you intend to train, that is, have a clear picture in your head, so that the diverse tree forms in production can be guided according to their natural tendencies into the tree form you need. The shaping methods are as follows:

(1) Trees with sufficient shoots. First select three vigorously growing branches as main branches, bend them obliquely to an angle of 50-60 degrees. The rope used for bending should be tied to the middle-lower part of the shoot to prevent bending the branch into a bow shape. Thick, stiff branches should first be softened by bending, and pulled only after they become pliable, to prevent splitting or breaking. Select one weakly growing branch as the central leader and keep it vertical without bending.

(2) Trees with insufficient branches. For a weakly growing single-trunk tree, cut back to a height of 50 cm to establish the trunk again, encouraging more branches to grow next year before shaping. For a vigorously growing tree, the single trunk can be bent obliquely to serve as one main branch, and techniques such as notching buds can be used to encourage buds on the upper side to sprout other main branches. If it is a two-branch tree, keep one weak branch as a main branch, and short-prune the strong branch to encourage new shoots, training other main branches and the central leader. For a tree that already has three branches, train it into an open-center form.

(3) For trees with too many branches, after retaining enough main branches and the central leader, keep the other branches as much as possible as auxiliary nurturing branches, but they must be bent flat and must not exceed the height of the main branches.

3. Pruning:

When the three main branches are relatively uniform in growth vigor, the retained shoot heights are basically equal; otherwise, according to the principle of leaving strong shoots unpruned and heavily pruning weak shoots, vigorous main branches should have more shoots retained and less pruning, generally retaining more than 2/3; weak branches should be pruned more and have fewer shoots retained to encourage long shoot growth, generally cutting off about half. When pruning, the cut should be slightly slanted, about 1 cm from the bud, and the bud at the cut should be left on the outer side of the branch.

Pruning and training is an important part of tree form development. The creation of a good tree form also requires summer pruning and water and fertilizer management measures to be carried out in a coordinated manner.