How To Prune Fruit Trees In The Desert

Occasionally inquires about pruning fruit trees in our desert environment are requested. There is a great deal of literature written about pruning in other areas. This volume has to do with the fact that cooler and higher elevations are suitable for growing fruit trees. However in our relatively mild winters, and extremely hot summers we do not have as many fruit tree choices. Major exceptions are citrus and date palms.

Our mild winters don’t usually supply the trees with sufficient chilling hours so the numbers of varieties are limited here. However, over the years there are several varieties of apples, pears, peaches, plums and apricots have been selected to cope with these limitations.

Most pruning guides are for areas with limited sunshine and increased number of chilling hours. These instructions do not address our desert environment.

The Maricopa Cooperative Extension office suggests pruning our fruit trees like we would prune a “normal tree.” We don’t remove as much foliage since we have more light in our area. They feel that excess pruning shortens the life of desert grown trees. Therefore the suggestion is to prune like a typical tree and do not remove more than 25% of the tree’s foliage. These recommendations differ from commercial plantings since their goals are different from homeowners. They utilize more extreme pruning to increase fruit production. It is these extremes that tend to introduce sunburn on our backyard trees. The normal instructions that are used in commercial plantings are illustrated in the web pages that follow.

From University of Arizona Master Cooperative Extension Gardener Manual

http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/pruning/fruit.html

http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/fruit/irrigation.html#pruning

http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/pruning/other.html

http://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/fruit/planting.html

There are web sites on pruning fruit trees in Arizona. These directions show the differences in pruning pome fruits such as apples and pears versus stone fruits such as peaches, nectarines, apricots and plums.

The first article is from the Tucson area. http://ag.arizona.edu/gardening/news/azdailystar/pruning_vigor.html