Formation of fruit trees by bending without pruning

Finally, you have purchased and placed on your site the seedlings of the desired variety of pear, apple or other fruit tree. And they did it, of course, counting on a good harvest, and not on a thick shade for half of the dacha or a pile of firewood for a bathhouse in a dozen years.

Take advantage of the unique chance to initially give the young trees such a shape so that fruiting occurs every year and is abundant, so that the plants do not take up much space and are convenient for harvesting from the ground, without the use of various devices. It is quite possible to achieve this, and the proof of this is the practical experiments of natural agriculture.

The main thing that a novice amateur gardener should know: the active formation of fruits in trees occurs when they do not have the opportunity to direct their vitality in a different direction. If nothing prevents the plant from reaching up and releasing more and more new shoots, it will stretch and release. Therefore, it is so important that the tree is initially distributed in width, and does not grow upward, so that the main branches are located as horizontally as possible.

For fruit trees, the ideal crown is a bowl. Then you have a short tree that has branches spread out in different directions and a free middle. A plant of this shape is better illuminated by the sun's rays, is more hardy in severe winters, and is not so susceptible to fractures. And, most importantly, when the time comes, its branches are hung with fruits.

How to shape trees by bending

You can start the formation process already with a seedling. Before planting in a permanent place, or immediately after that, it is necessary to remove excess branches. Roughly speaking, you can prune a young tree so that it becomes a straight, bare stick about 80 centimeters high. Remember how we talked about the correct planting of the pear. Do not worry, at the initial stage it is more important for the plant to develop the root system, to gain a foothold in a new place, and the branches will grow later, of course.

Actually, we begin to bend the shoots in the second year. It is optimal to do this in the spring, after the establishment of good weather, but before the buds open. During this period, wood is the softest and most resilient.

First, we determine the height of the future trunk. The trunk is called the strong thick trunk we need, branched in the future into side branches. Practice shows that it is better to take from forty to eighty centimeters. We mark the level we need, take a rope or twine made of polypropylene and pegs.

Fanaticism is not appropriate here - we bend the plant so that the desired stem is vertical, and the part that is higher is bent horizontally. The more parallel the branch is to the ground, the better. Of course, this largely depends on the angle of the branch to the trunk or on the thickness of the trunk itself. Therefore, as far as we managed to bend, we leave as much. After all, we have a completely different goal than breaking the tree with our excessive efforts.If the plant does not want to bend at all, it must be "washed" - bend the trunk a couple of times a dozen centimeters below and above the level of the desired bend to a slight crunch.

We tie the bent shoot to a peg, focusing more on the middle than on the top. Short branches that are below the fold do not need to be cut, later they will dry out on their own. If there are strong branches there, they are also spread apart, bent over and tied to pegs.

What are the next steps? The nature of the tree makes it strive upward, so it activates all its forces to return to the vertical. In the spring, a young shoot will begin to grow on the fold straight up. By the beginning of autumn, it will become large enough, and it is also bent in the direction opposite to the first branch and fixed with a peg. And again, no extra effort is needed - as far as bent down, so well. A little later, three months later, after strengthening the fold, try to tilt a little more.

Thus, 3-4 vertical branches bent in the opposite direction will form the lower tier of the plant. Side shoots do not need to be removed, they are also bent. Two to three years will pass and the seedling will have a properly formed crown. It's time to remove all unnecessary and with your own hands help the tree to develop branches, where there will be fruit buds.

How to increase the number of fruit buds on apple and pear

Small, not fully developed branches with fruit buds are called fruit. On apple and pear seedlings (but, unfortunately, not on stone fruits), their number can be increased by shortening the necessary shoots in time.

When the tree, in which all the necessary branches have already been bent away, will go through the third or fourth year, we will begin to remove the unnecessary. This is best done in early summer - young shoots are still soft and pliable.

Finding out where the young are coming from. All branches growing from the middle, forks, are removed. Our crown has already been formed, and extra thickening is not needed.

When the shoots have emerged from the bent branches, the appearance of fruit can be stimulated on them. We shorten each such shoot so that a small twig with two leaves at the base remains. After 2-4 weeks, when the shoots grow back, they are cut off again, leaving now one leaf. This "haircut" is repeated as many times until the top of the shoot is decorated with a thick bud that appears. Although this process goes on almost all summer, it is not time consuming and very effective. Next year, there will be flowers on each cut off shoot.

And you no longer need to bend the branches - the fruits will do it. And the task of the gardener will be to remove dead wood and thinning the crown.

Important! The bending method is not recommended for bush cherry varieties, peach trees and columnar apple trees.

Bending branches - the formation of fruit trees (video)