Rejuvenating pruning of old trees

How to help an old garden? You need to start with a thorough inspection of the trunks and skeletal branches of the trees. If they are affected by diseases (cytospora blight, black cancer, etc.), it means that they will soon have to be removed, just like trees affected by bark beetles (holes in the bark or exposed wood), and polypores (mushrooms).

During inspection, they check not only the bark, but also the leaves and fruits. If there are spots on the bark, they are immediately cut out, including 2-3 cm of the healthy part.The bark is peeled and washed with a 1% solution of copper sulfate (100 g per 10 liters of water) and covered with garden pitch. Severely affected trees or individual branches are removed and burned. And this is a very important job - to free the old garden from diseased and drying broken branches, and to cover the wounds from bark beetles with garden varnish or water-based tree emulsion.

Is it possible to rejuvenate old fruit trees?

Gardeners have many problems with pruning old trees. The question immediately arises: which tree is considered old? Old age of trees is determined by annual growth. If they are less than 15-20 cm, then anti-aging pruning is necessary. But this usually happens at 30-40 years of age. 20-25-year-old orchards on a medium-sized rootstock are not old; they can bear fruit for another 10 years or more. Everything depends on care and regular rejuvenation.

Apple and pear trees bear fruit mainly on fruit trees - perennial fruit formations. And when the growth weakens, the tree will produce a harvest for another 3-4 years, but with very small fruits. Anti-aging pruning will extend the full life of the tree.

But it happens that gardeners encounter aging trees much earlier if the trees are pruned incorrectly or not pruned at all.

If annual growth is less than 25 cm, light rejuvenation is carried out, which will quickly restore fruiting and increase growth. In this case, the branches are cut into 3-4 year old wood.

But slight rejuvenation will not help the tree if annual growth is no more than 10 cm. In this case, a very strong rejuvenation and reduction of the crown is carried out, literally removing the entire crown, except for skeletal branches and overgrowing branches.

Rejuvenating pruning of an old garden.

After such severe pruning, tops 50-100 cm long will begin to grow.From them we form the crown again, cutting out unnecessary tops. It is better to first shorten the branches on one half of the crown to the desired height. When the crown has been greatly thinned out by removing perennial branches, next year a lot of tops will grow on large saw cuts, since a lot of nutrients arrive in the cut areas.

All tops growing inside the crown are cut into a ring, and well-placed tops are left in the right place. The remaining tops in the cut areas are shortened, leaving 2-3 buds. From the growing shoots it will be possible to form a crown.

Top shoots on an old tree in place of removed branches can be used for grafting.

If tops appear on old trees, this is a signal that the tree needs rejuvenation. In this case, they are not removed, but are used to create a new tree crown, and the old crown is cut off for 3-4 year growth. The crown is often rejuvenated (partial rejuvenation) by removing branches to the point where the tops appear.

Tops, or fatty shoots, appear after the tree freezes. In this case, some of the tops are cut out, and some are turned into fruit wood by pinching and pruning. And only a small part is left for crown restoration.

Feeding the old garden

Rejuvenated trees require good nutrition and water supply. So, the apple tree needs to be fed 3-4 times per season.

    First feeding - in the end of April. Take 5-6 buckets of humus and 500 gr. urea and scatter over the crown projection.
Second feeding - before flowering. If there is no precipitation and it is hot, then for a 200-liter barrel of water take: 800 g. potassium sulfate, 1 kg of superphosphate, 5 l.bird droppings or 10 liters of slurry (or, in their absence, 500 grams of urea). Mix everything and leave for a week. When feeding, the consumption per 1 fruit-bearing tree is 4-5 buckets. One barrel for 4-5 apple trees (You need to water according to the projection of the crown, stepping back from the trunk by 50-60 cm.

    Third feeding - during the fruit filling phase.

For a 200-liter barrel take: 3 kg. nitrophoska, 20 gr. dry sodium humate. First add a small amount of water to the powder and stir well. Consumption - 3 buckets per fruit-bearing tree.

    Fourth feeding - after harvesting: pour 300 grams under each tree. potassium sulfate and superphosphate. In the absence of rain, it is better to dilute fertilizers with water.

Sanitary pruning

Sanitary pruning of gardens can be carried out at any time of the year. They remove not only broken, drying out, diseased branches, but also shoots.

If the trees in the garden have never been properly pruned, carry out restorative pruning (for example, the trees have grown in height, grown in width, the tree has frozen or the middle of the crown has been exposed).

Thus, a young tree with an unformed crown can be restored already in the 2-3rd year. First, you need to find a branch that can be used as a central conductor (located in the center of the crown and above other branches).

We determine where the second tier of branches needs to be laid, and cut the top at this height. We cut off the remaining branches 10-20 cm below the top of the central conductor.

We select the skeletal branches of the first tier from the thickest and strongest branches to form a cross when viewed from above, i.e., each skeletal branch should be opposite the other.

We either cut out the remaining branches or shorten them by 3-4 buds.

This is how we restore a neglected tree at any age, when lack of pruning or improper pruning is to blame.