Conversations with Growers
Pruning Apple Trees: A Grower's Perspective
Washington fruit grower Nestor Garcia shares his perspective on pruning apple trees and lessons learned in the orchard.
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About This Conversation
For Washington fruit grower Nestor Garcia, pruning is about more than shaping a tree. It's one of the most important tools growers have for managing fruit production, quality, and the overall health of their orchards.
In this conversation, Nestor shares how his approach to pruning has evolved, including why he doesn't necessarily prune his trees the same way—or even every year. He explains how decisions about pruning can influence fruit size, sunlight, airflow, and the consistency of a crop from one season to the next.
We also discuss why pruning can be intimidating for backyard growers. Nestor offers his perspective on a couple of common mistakes he sees, including allowing trees to grow too large and letting young trees produce fruit before they're well established.
His central message is that there's no one-size-fits-all approach to pruning. Every tree is different, and how you care for it depends on its structure, growing conditions, and what you want it to produce.
Nestor also shares his thoughts on using resources like YouTube and AI to help home growers make more informed decisions about their trees.
Key Topics
- Pruning apple trees
- Lessons from commercial orchards
- Using AI for pruning
- Establishing new trees
Full Interview Transcript Read transcript ↓
Scott: What's helped your trees most when it's come to pruning or when it comes to pruning?
Nestor: Yeah, good question. I see pruning as, and this knowledge has come to me recently, honestly. Pruning is the most effective crop management method we have. And what I find out about pruning is that pruning doesn't have to be done the same every season. It really is a way to manage your crop.
And I find out and learn that you can cut any of these branches and look them into a microscope and see how many of these buds they're going to develop into fruit next year. And based on the amount of fruits that you have, you can, with a certain degree of certainty, know how much fruit you have on the tree right now.
And so depending on how much fruit you have on the tree, you can adjust that pruning to set the amount of fruit that you have. Because if you overset too much fruit, you don't get size and quality. If you underset the fruit, you open the risk for too large of a fruit and having some internal issues. And so having the right fruit set makes a big impact on the quality, the coloring, the size, and the overall performance of the operation.
And so last year, for example, our trees were pruned heavy and they didn't return as much growth as we were expecting. And so last winter, we didn't prune. We came in and touched up a couple areas that were quite heavy, but we left them the way they were. And so you can see that we have a couple branches that are super long and this and that. But we had a good crop.
Crop and crop load was adequate and size was nice. And now this year, we might be looking to do a little more heavy pruning to make sure that we have enough light penetration, we have enough space for the sprays to go through.
We have enough fruit separation, so we'll come in and do a little bit more intense pruning this season. But those are a couple items that I look into when I want to think about pruning.
And then goes back to the old notion of trees have on and off bearing. We have some of that and it's very variety specific, but you can reduce it significantly because of the pruning. And again, this is a new idea that I'm training people is the old idea is you prune every year.
But when you think about crop management, if you have a heavy year and then you prune heavy, you're knocking off a lot of the wood that would have fruit and that would allow you to maintain a stable crop.
And so if you prune every year, you're bound to have more volatility and fruits set. And so if you manage it properly, that gets reduced. And you can start bringing more stability to production and hopefully income on the farm.
Scott: So imagine you have a friend, they have some apple trees in their backyard that they are diligently caring for. But pruning intimidates them. I know we just touched on pruning. What advice would you give them?
Nestor: I would say YouTube is your best tool. You can learn a lot from other people what they're doing. If you want a specific ideas about pruning, I would do a disservice to try to explain. Just because every tree needs to be pruned differently. If you have a high density apple like this one, they're pruned differently than a freestanding larger canopy orchard. They have different light requirements. Different airflow, different crop load management.
And so specific tips for homegrown orchards are hard to give without seeing the tree.
The one thing I will give advice to folks and that I've seen time and time again on home growing is folks tend to not be aggressive with pruning because they're nervous about it. Oh, what if I cut that?
That's one. And so what they end up doing is they end up letting the tree grow too much. And they end up losing all the fruit in capacity of the tree because the tree end up losing just at the ends, what they normally do. And so a lot of fruit growers tend to develop what I call the umbrella tree, which is a tree with no fruit in the main bearing areas and having just fruit on the top. And it looks like a nice pretty umbrella.
And so that is obviously not what we want. They're too high. They're not easy to pick. They're not easy to maintain. And so don't be afraid to cut down the tree. The more you cut it down, the more they'll come back. They want to push.
The other thing that I would say to home growers is they tend to love to let the fruit produce too early. I have seen countless of folks planting a tiny little tree with 15 apples on that baby tree. And they do not service because once you set that fruit, you stunt the growth.
I usually tell folks that planting home, don't expect to pick up fruit for three years. Do a good job and let the tree grow and establish. And then you will have no lack of fruit.
Those will be two tips that I give to home growers just because they, the notion of growing an apple tree tends to be seen as growing like a shade tree. They'll just grow, but they're not. It takes different care for them.
Scott: They're definitely hands-on.
Nestor: Yes, very much.
Scott: And it sounds like there's no one size fits all when it comes to pruning.
Nestor: Exactly. You can have somebody that wants to replicate this in a very small scale with three posts, two wires and two trees. And they can imitate what we're doing here, tying the branches and managing each bud and what not.
And there are some folks that just want to plant a tree in the middle of the yard and I want to have a nice little looking tree. And depending on what they want to do, there's different techniques.
I find out that, honestly, AI is a wonderful tool for basic things like that. If you want to plant a new tree and say, "Hey, how should I prune this tree to help me?" ChatGPT will pick up on all the knowledge that we have been putting in the web. And will give you some basic training on how to do it.
I have come as far as taking a picture of a tree and giving it to AI. Yeah, AI and be like, "Hey, where can I prune it?" And it'll give you some ideas.
I don't think it will ever replace the knowledge and experience of an orchardist, but it's better than going blind.
Nestor: Yeah, good question. I see pruning as, and this knowledge has come to me recently, honestly. Pruning is the most effective crop management method we have. And what I find out about pruning is that pruning doesn't have to be done the same every season. It really is a way to manage your crop.
And I find out and learn that you can cut any of these branches and look them into a microscope and see how many of these buds they're going to develop into fruit next year. And based on the amount of fruits that you have, you can, with a certain degree of certainty, know how much fruit you have on the tree right now.
And so depending on how much fruit you have on the tree, you can adjust that pruning to set the amount of fruit that you have. Because if you overset too much fruit, you don't get size and quality. If you underset the fruit, you open the risk for too large of a fruit and having some internal issues. And so having the right fruit set makes a big impact on the quality, the coloring, the size, and the overall performance of the operation.
And so last year, for example, our trees were pruned heavy and they didn't return as much growth as we were expecting. And so last winter, we didn't prune. We came in and touched up a couple areas that were quite heavy, but we left them the way they were. And so you can see that we have a couple branches that are super long and this and that. But we had a good crop.
Crop and crop load was adequate and size was nice. And now this year, we might be looking to do a little more heavy pruning to make sure that we have enough light penetration, we have enough space for the sprays to go through.
We have enough fruit separation, so we'll come in and do a little bit more intense pruning this season. But those are a couple items that I look into when I want to think about pruning.
And then goes back to the old notion of trees have on and off bearing. We have some of that and it's very variety specific, but you can reduce it significantly because of the pruning. And again, this is a new idea that I'm training people is the old idea is you prune every year.
But when you think about crop management, if you have a heavy year and then you prune heavy, you're knocking off a lot of the wood that would have fruit and that would allow you to maintain a stable crop.
And so if you prune every year, you're bound to have more volatility and fruits set. And so if you manage it properly, that gets reduced. And you can start bringing more stability to production and hopefully income on the farm.
Scott: So imagine you have a friend, they have some apple trees in their backyard that they are diligently caring for. But pruning intimidates them. I know we just touched on pruning. What advice would you give them?
Nestor: I would say YouTube is your best tool. You can learn a lot from other people what they're doing. If you want a specific ideas about pruning, I would do a disservice to try to explain. Just because every tree needs to be pruned differently. If you have a high density apple like this one, they're pruned differently than a freestanding larger canopy orchard. They have different light requirements. Different airflow, different crop load management.
And so specific tips for homegrown orchards are hard to give without seeing the tree.
The one thing I will give advice to folks and that I've seen time and time again on home growing is folks tend to not be aggressive with pruning because they're nervous about it. Oh, what if I cut that?
That's one. And so what they end up doing is they end up letting the tree grow too much. And they end up losing all the fruit in capacity of the tree because the tree end up losing just at the ends, what they normally do. And so a lot of fruit growers tend to develop what I call the umbrella tree, which is a tree with no fruit in the main bearing areas and having just fruit on the top. And it looks like a nice pretty umbrella.
And so that is obviously not what we want. They're too high. They're not easy to pick. They're not easy to maintain. And so don't be afraid to cut down the tree. The more you cut it down, the more they'll come back. They want to push.
The other thing that I would say to home growers is they tend to love to let the fruit produce too early. I have seen countless of folks planting a tiny little tree with 15 apples on that baby tree. And they do not service because once you set that fruit, you stunt the growth.
I usually tell folks that planting home, don't expect to pick up fruit for three years. Do a good job and let the tree grow and establish. And then you will have no lack of fruit.
Those will be two tips that I give to home growers just because they, the notion of growing an apple tree tends to be seen as growing like a shade tree. They'll just grow, but they're not. It takes different care for them.
Scott: They're definitely hands-on.
Nestor: Yes, very much.
Scott: And it sounds like there's no one size fits all when it comes to pruning.
Nestor: Exactly. You can have somebody that wants to replicate this in a very small scale with three posts, two wires and two trees. And they can imitate what we're doing here, tying the branches and managing each bud and what not.
And there are some folks that just want to plant a tree in the middle of the yard and I want to have a nice little looking tree. And depending on what they want to do, there's different techniques.
I find out that, honestly, AI is a wonderful tool for basic things like that. If you want to plant a new tree and say, "Hey, how should I prune this tree to help me?" ChatGPT will pick up on all the knowledge that we have been putting in the web. And will give you some basic training on how to do it.
I have come as far as taking a picture of a tree and giving it to AI. Yeah, AI and be like, "Hey, where can I prune it?" And it'll give you some ideas.
I don't think it will ever replace the knowledge and experience of an orchardist, but it's better than going blind.
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