I do most of my pruning in November.

I prune old apples any time, but young apples,pears and peaches I like to do after coldest weather passes. Peaches are best pruned when they are in bloom but I usually prune them while still dormant.

I certainly have gotten away with pruning all species as early as Feb and trees have not suffered injury when temps have gotten well below zero F. after.

I'm interested in how peaches and pears have survived mid-winter pruning in colder areas.

If you have Asian pears... they're vulnerable to Pseudomonas infections if pruned in the fall or winter. The best time is supposed to be dry weather in late spring or early summer.

I pruned my Asian pears in the winter the first year after planting when I didn't know any better, and they did indeed develop black, wet-looking branches over the rest of the winter... sounds like the description of Pseudomonas. I cut them rather far back in the spring, but they're vigorous and recovered well.

OK. They do say that winter pruning promotes growth?
Earlier this year I treated the trees with mycorrihzae and my did they ever grow!
So I don't really want to promote more growth? Would I be better off to wait for early /late summer?

How bout the tree you didn't treat- how'd it grow? I'd like to see research that adding mycorizal fungus is at all beneficial in soil that has already been habitated by tree roots (has trees in the vicinity). I believe it to be another product out there based loosely on scientific fact but not on efficacy. These fungus are pretty much omnipresent in all but sterile soils or in prarie areas without trees and reproduce very quickly when the environment suits them. (Prarie soils have mychorizal fungus that don't serve trees and serve herbacious plants instead).

I'm not trying to win debate points but I'm really nauseated by these kinds of products that are pretty much BS and only serve to transfer money from hard working people to con artists.

Dormant pruning is what is said to promote growth, whether it's done in late fall, winter or early spring.

So, harvestman, you obviously like to live in the past! I for one will try mostly anything, if it improves what I'm doing.
If you could see my production this year, compared to previous years, due mainly to 'going green' you wouldn't question whether it's a case of viable products or not.
What you have missed is that tilling, soil disturbance of any sort, adding chemicals, will kill off both bacteria and beneficial fungus. All I'm trying to do is replace it faster than Mother Nature can, for my benefit.
But as you say, lets not try to win debating points, each to his own view point.

Back to pruning. You say that dormant pruning will promote growth. So summer pruning will NOT promote growth?

I read a newspaper article a while ago that talked about summer pruning to limit fruit tree growth, it's a good one.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100618/LIFESTYLE/100619522

If you want to check it out.

Okay, after re-reading that article and looking at the Dave Wilson Nursery website I realized that I waited too long for my first year summer pruning, now I'm worried that it's too late.

I planted four trees this year, the pear is very small, the peach and persimmon are small, and the plum got big. Is it too late for me to cut back those branches now?

Beeman, now you begin to annoy. I live in the scientific present and if you can find me some current, objective (not provided by the marketer) research that endorses your very limited anecdotal observation my annoyance will immediately be transformed to appreciation. If I want mychorizal fungus I can scoop up a couple shovelfulls of humus from under any tree.

The past and the present are inhabited with people who appreciate Barnum's wisdom. I have an ethical issue with people taking advantage of others instead of doing something useful with their energy.

Bogus products have always found some enthusiastic supporters just as leeching blood was found often to be quite affective. Bodies heal and trees grow and young trees have a tendency to suddenly spurt out when they've established enough roots.

"you obviously like to live in the past!

It's not a question of living in the past, since the benefits mycorrhizal relationships have been known for a long time (since the 1800s).

The question is, do the inoculants help? In most cases, probably not.

Human health supplements, as well as plant supplements are industries especially prone to market snake oil. Many times there is some small truth in the logic behind the supplement, but the marketers generally make false leaps in reason somewhere along the way.

They appeal to our desire to find that "silver bullet".

I'm not saying mycorrhizae has positively not helped your trees, just that one has to be very careful not to be influenced by the "placebo effect". I see it around me all the time - the more time, effort, or money spent on the placebo, the more likely the individual will see some benefit.

One of the more interesting ones, was the mass use of arsenic as a health tonic in the early 1900s. People testified it was making them feel better, even as they were poisoning themselves. A modern day example would be colloidal silver.

In my climate I dormant prune whenever I get around to it; never noticed any ill effects on early pruning. The one exception is vines (grapes and kiwis), they get pruned right before bud-break so from the swell I can see what canes died back and prune all of them out.

I did my own experiment with mycorrhizae and determined they did nothing noticeable and I stopped adding it even though I still have a pound bought and paid for. If you are living in a new suburb where the topsoil was stripped off I would recommend them, but in most soils you are already well-populated.

Scott

I prune in the spring so that I can see and remove any damage from freezing.

I do not prune late in the fall because it has been my experience that recently cut branches suffer much more severe freeze damage, and I've seen a branch with a couple of feet of frozen tissue on a cut branch where an uncut branch right next to it will have none.

That being said, most of my freeze damage is on roses and I rarely have any freeze damage on the fruit trees (but then, the fruit trees haven't ever had any branches cut going into late fall).

Just a suggestion: prune a few now and save a few until next spring and then you can compare the results of the different methods. The results that each of us get under different growing conditions are unlikely to be exactly what you will get where you are growing.

As I understand it a fresh pruning cut on an apple tree tends to remain vulnerable to severe cold for about 2 weeks following. For old apple trees this means about -25 F.. The result of such damage is damaged cambium near the cut. Although I've pruned every day right through winters that got to -22, I've never seen such damage on any trees I've pruned.

In the Hudson Valley there are apple growers that have their picking crews prune the trees after the harvest is complete as a regular system. Presumably they suffer no damage on relatively young trees. There are parts of the Hud Valley that get somewhat colder than the conditions I work in.

For my zone 6, it seems like small shoots can be pruned anytime, but I've gotten some winter damage from some large limb removal in the late fall. Referring to peaches here.