I'm pretty active in the gardening community, and am often called on to give talks/demos about pruning - probably an outgrowth of the fact that experienced bonsai practitioners can prune in their sleep. It's a popular program to talk to a group at someone's home and actually use their trees to demonstrate pruning techniques and explain principles. One of the most oft asked questions is 'When can I prune?' My stock answer is 'Any time you have a sharp pair of pruners in your hand.'

For major pruning chores: wounds close fastest if you prune in the spring before buds move. This also prevents the tree's moving stored energy to branches you then remove - thereby wasting it. If you want to avoid excessive suckering and water sprouts, limit your pruning to no more than 15-20% of the above-ground mass of the tree, 10% is better - unless the tree is small and you can also prune roots with a spade at the same time you prune the canopy, in which case you can remove more and avoid the suckering/water sprouts.

It's difficult to be specific w/o knowing what your goal is. Are you rejuvenating a multi-stemmed tree/shrub - reducing the height of a single trunk tree - pruning for appearance by removing crossing branches or branches that don't enhance the trees appearance .....?

Al

Thank you so much for your kind response. I must admit I entirely ignorant of taking care of these trees but really want to learn. I plan to go look at the library for some books on the topic next week.

My goal is to prune the tree in accordance with the principles of backyard orchard culture. I have two trees that at 20-25 feet tall and one that is 28 feet tall. I want to prune them down to around 7-9 feet tall but allow them to spread outwards as much as possible. This is to achieve a tree where it will be easy for me to pick the fruit.

I also lost most of my fruit to squirrels this summer in a 1 week period so after I prune them down I can cover them with wildlife netting and let it drape to the ground. Hopefully this will keep most of the critters out come next year and it will be easier to cover them while they are bare.

Last winter I pruned one tree that was app. 18 feet tall down to around 10 feet tall. It looked very nice this year and appeared to have plenty of fruit, which the squirrels ate. Dang squirrels.

Anyway, that is my goal so I think I want to reduce the height of a tree, but 2 of the remaining 3 trees have 3 trunks coming out of the ground.