258 Missouri Agr. Exp. Sta. Research Bulletin No. 8 



Waite^ reports that very severe pruning of trees in Michigan 

 and other parts of the North, following the same winter, did not give 

 as good results as light pruning removing about one-third to one- 

 half of the one year old wood, and in Missouri, both in the Experi- 

 ment Station orchard and in orchards at Brandsville and Hollister 

 of southern Missouri, old trees that were severely cut back following 

 the severe winter of 1911-12 did not recover as well as old trees with 

 even no cutting back. The amount of cutting that seemed to have 

 been the most desirable, following either the winter of 1908-09 or 

 1904-05, in Missouri, was in a large number of cases fatal in 1911-12. 

 At Brandsville a large block of trees that had reached a height of 

 something like fifteen feet had their branches cut back to stubs four 

 or five feet long, and a large percentage of the trees died, after making 

 some slight growth in the spring, while trees with no pruning or very 

 light pruning recovered much better. 



Just what the difference is it is hard to say, except that pre- 

 ceding the winter of 1911-12, growth conditions were much the same 

 as those described by Waite, Selby and Eustace for Michigan, Ohio 

 and New York preceding the winter of 1903-04; that is, dry weather 

 in the early part of the season, followed by very wet weather causing 

 a late succulent growth. 



In deciding how much pruning to give a tree following a severe 

 winter, one must consider the kind of injury. If the lower part of 

 the tree is very severely injured, as it will be when the tree is 

 forced into late succulent growth following conditions that seriously 

 check its growth earlier, the pruning should probably be such as to 

 remove not more than one-half of the one-year-old wood, while if 

 the injury is distributed throughout the tree, and is not so severe that 

 the cortex and cambium are entirely killed at any point, it would 

 seem highly probable that more severe cutting back say into two- 

 year-old wood would be desirable. Such cutting back is often 

 beneficial to the trees even when they do not need it to help them 

 recover from severe freezes. However, very severe cutting back, 

 such as Whitten describes, is probably not the most desirable follow- 

 ing any kind of a winter since much less cutting will give entirely 

 satisfactory results and a better tree with more fruit buds for the 

 following season 's crop. Cutting back to induce recovery from win- 

 ter injury has always been more successful at this station on young 

 trees than on old ones and on trees kept vigorous by severe pruning 

 during previous years than on less vigorous trees. In fact if trees 

 are old and neglected, severe cutting back all in one year should 

 always be avoided. 



>U. S. Dept. Agr. 13. P. I. Bill. 51. pp. 15-19. (Bibl. No. 111). 



