The Biggest Mistake Gardeners Make When Pruning Open Center Fruit Trees

In this video we will discuss the biggest mistake gardeners make when pruning open center fruit trees. It's important to remove the leader on young open center fruit trees, but as the tree matures, the center of the tree becomes too open and older mature bark can become sunburned, so it's important to start pointing the tree in towards the middle or tip back a water sprout in the middle of the tree so that it collects the extra energy and shades the mature bark.

[@cistern]

Hmmm. Makes a ton of sense.

[@fruitpruningchannel]

Thanks for watching!

[@Fed_Up_]

Right! Good info!

[@fruitpruningchannel]

Thanks!

[@nerinat8371]

Excellent points, thank you

[@fruitpruningchannel]

Thank you!

[@GardeningWithCoffee]

Excellent video 😊

[@fruitpruningchannel]

Thank you!

[@AnZhengling]

How do you know when you should prune for open center vs central leader? Is it more preference or the fruit tree type or something else?

[@fruitpruningchannel]

Yeah, some fruit trees do better with open centers and some do better with modified or central leaders. Peaches, nectarine, and Asian plums are good with open center. Apricot, cherry, Italian plum and apple are good with modified leaders and pears will do good with central leaders.