HAMILTON, Ohio — Why, when and how does one prune fruit trees? Cindy Meyer, agriculture and natural resources educator for Butler County, gets a number of questions about it.

So, she was pleased when a local orchardist offered to do a hands-on fruit tree pruning clinic on his farm. “We’ve offered some classes, but there is nothing like going out to a farm and experiencing it firsthand,” Meyer said. “Ray Arlinghaus is an expert in this field. Our goal is better fruit production from your trees.”

Probably the No. 1 reason for pruning fruit trees is to control the tree size, Meyer said. Ease of picking is important; another reason is to help control disease and pests that might attack the tree.

“When we prune, we open up that limb structure so that the air will move freely through and dry it out,” Meyer explained. “It lessens the stress on the tree. It also allows light into the interior of the tree. It removes damaged, dead or diseased growth and encourages new growth.”

The best time to prune is in the dormant season, February and March. There is no right or wrong time to prune trees, she said; if a tree has damage or diseased growth, you can prune anytime of the year.

However, for general pruning, you should avoid fall or early winter.

“If you do a lot of pruning in the fall, it will stimulate the tree to try to replace that growth and the growth will be young and tender,” Arlinghaus said. “If you get an early, hard winter, you could damage that whole limb because it has not hardened off properly.”

Apple, peach and plum trees are pruned in different styles. You will remove a number of limbs to prune the tree, but that will not change the root mass. When someone watches him prune a peach tree, for example, he said they think he is going to kill the tree.

“The choice is you can have X number of pounds of fruit about the size of a walnut, or you can have nice, big, luscious peaches,” Arlinghaus said. “Thinning fruit – with peaches there is no way to do it other than to control the amount of wood on the tree. You will reduce the amount of hand-thinning you need to do in June and will have nice, marketable peaches.”

Apple trees need some thinning of wood, but not as much as peach trees. Rather, the apples need to be hand-thinned when they are about the size of marbles.

Another reason for pruning is spacing considerations, Arlinghaus explained.

You may want to confine the size of tree based on acreage or yard space. You may prune the trees to grow more vertically or to keep them lower, so you don’t need a ladder. “I trim my peach trees so that I can, by grabbing a limb and pulling it down a bit, I can reach the entire tree,” he said. “That saves me from having to reach a ladder around 360 peach trees every year as I thin them. I have the safety and ease of being able to work them from the ground.”

Pruning tools orchardists need include bypass pruners, bypass loppers and a hand saw (preferably tri-edged), he said.

For more resources, visit http://ohioline.osu.edu/lines/bulls.html and request extension publications Midwest Home Fruit Production Guide-Bulletin 940 and Controlling Diseases and Insects in Home Fruit Plantings-Bulletin 780.