Orchard Pruning Workshop Story

Winter and early spring is a busy time for the permaculture deisgner and orchardist. Besides running sustainability and pruning courses there is always a list of new pruning customers to tend to. It is also the period of planting bare root trees, orchards and hedging for design customers.

I’m finally getting a chance however to write about the recent winter orchard pruning workshop here at the Ansa Permaculture Design headquarters, also known as my home and garden in West Cork.

On a sunny frosty morning in February I was delighted to teach a small group including one student travelling all the way from Germany!

Orchard care tools and books and props for course in the orchard!

Orchard pruning workshop topics

The pruning workshop covered the following topics: Why prune at all; the natural shape of an apple tree; the purpose of grafting; its effects and side-effects; summer pruning vs winter pruning; vegetative and fruiting wood; orchard guilds and design considerations; pollination; tools and tool care; disease pruning; pruning demos.

It’s a massive amount of material to get through in a day and I think it would be very difficult to absorb in purely theoretical terms. I am a firm believer in the action – learning cycle however and always I appeal to diverse learning styles during the course by providing demonstration and opportunities for active learning through practice.

Here is a general article introducing the subject of orchard care: https://permaculturedesign.ie/orchard-pruning-cork/

There is always more to learn from nature

So far I have done by far more private permaculture design, sustainability consulting and orchard work than teach courses on these subjects, and I find that both the practical work and the teaching compliment each other immensely.

As I do so much private work I often find that I have improved by pruning technique, knowledge or have innovated some improved safety measure since the last course I ran.

This year what springs to mind is my improved efficiency in restructuring tree shape via tying with temporary rubber strips.

When I was starting my professional orchardist work back in 2016 I relied fully on steering tree growth by pruning. Temporary ties however allow me to redirect misdirected healthy young growth – at times even fruiting wood up to three or four years old – into a more natural orientation. With pruning only, this wood must be sacrificed or tolerated in a crossing position, which can lead to rubbing, crowding and a higher likelihood of disease in subsequent years.

Now I never leave home for a pruning job without a bag of old bicycle tube inners, which serve perfectly for the job of temporary ties.

A pruning student tying an apple tree branch at the Ansa winter pruning course

First do no harm to the fruit tree

The ties however can themselves become a focal point for disease on the tree if left on too long. What I have found is that about four months is usually enough for the tied branch to permanently accept the new growing direction. This will vary from branch to branch depending on the age, thickness and degree of change of growing angle.

In a home orchard one could test maybe once a month whether the shape has taken and then remove the ties in a timely manner. In practice however I find it more efficient to deal with all the ties while doing the rounds of summer or winter pruning, so they generally stay on for about six months or so. This is especially the case for customer orchards to limit maintenance costs.