To prune or not to prune, that’s always the question.

Figgin' A said:
Thank you for posting; I learned something new today - that you can, apparently, keep cutting fruiting branches all the way down to the old wood, and they will re-grow each year. Before, I was under the impression that you must leave at least one new bud behind.
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All the Japanese cordon trees I see are pruned to leave a bud or two. Except when they want a replacement branch.
 
What a paradise! I was reading that until recently there was no direct flight from North America to Madeira... I guess that meant that one had to fly all the way to Lisbon and then 1.5 hours back to Madeira.

Good videos!

I plan to really up my grafting game this year to place branching nodes where I want them on heavily pruned trees
 
My heart ached with every cut he made 😭
Imagine having to protect a fig this large, up here in Massachusetts!

It doesn’t look like he seals the cut wounds.
 
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In my area, cutting back all the way to 2+ year old wood will set you back weeks in the spring. There are latent buds on older wood but they take quite a bit longer to push out and start growing than last year's buds but they will grow, eventually.

I think of an apical bud left though the winter as a 2-3 week head start over a pruned branch. It's probably about the same delay between last year's cut branch and a 2+ year old branch with undeveloped buds (so a month+ later).

This would not be a winning pruning strategy where I live, but man am I jealous.
 
MFJFIGS said:
I have seen pictures of your trees, but didn’t realize they were this big. I recall seeing photos of the I-258 and another towards the back of your yard I think… was it a Celeste?
How old are they?
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The I-258 isn't nearly as big as the Etna. On second look, the one in the video probably has more girth. And I can't keep my main trunk that high.

That's a standard sized brick at the base of the trunk. You can sort of tell where I need to prune to. No way I can bend the big wood back anymore and I can't protect it if I leave it anywhere near that tall.

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This is what it came down to covered


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Joe,
Is this the Etna tree?
My second leaf Mt. Etna trees have grown way too fast which is great for now but will be challenging to protect in the future, especially that they are bushes with 5 trunks each. I will show some pictures in the spring.

How old is your tree?
 
hambones said:
In my area, cutting back all the way to 2+ year old wood will set you back weeks in the spring. There are latent buds on older wood but they take quite a bit longer to push out and start growing than last year's buds but they will grow, eventually.

I think of an apical bud left though the winter as a 2-3 week head start over a pruned branch. It's probably about the same delay between last year's cut branch and a 2+ year old branch with undeveloped buds (so a month+ later).

This would not be a winning pruning strategy where I live, but man am I jealous.
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That pruning strategy may be beneficial to space out fig harvest on a given tree. This past season for example, I picked more figs than I could eat and give away fresh and ended up freezing half of them during a four week stretch in August and September. If I pruned half of the branches late Winter, I wonder if I could space out the harvest through September while ripening the same amount of figs?
 
hambones said:
In my area, cutting back all the way to 2+ year old wood will set you back weeks in the spring. There are latent buds on older wood but they take quite a bit longer to push out and start growing than last year's buds but they will grow, eventually.

I think of an apical bud left though the winter as a 2-3 week head start over a pruned branch. It's probably about the same delay between last year's cut branch and a 2+ year old branch with undeveloped buds (so a month+ later).

This would not be a winning pruning strategy where I live, but man am I jealous.
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As I watched this, what confused me was his cuts into old wood that were 2 inches from a one year old bud. I understand thinning an old tree and needing to go back into old wood. But those pruning cuts that could have left one or two buds from last season didn’t make sense. I look at it like spur pruning grapes, you always leave new buds unless
You are growing replacent cordons, even then you might graft.

Side note. What a Franken tree that would make!
 
Figgin' A said:
Thank you for posting; I learned something new today - that you can, apparently, keep cutting fruiting branches all the way down to the old wood, and they will re-grow each year. Before, I was under the impression that you must leave at least one new bud behind.
Click to expand...
Yes new buds can form on a branches collar. Do not cut below the collar (e.g. flush), as that will prevent this. It may also be tree dependent how well this strategy works. Also, he’s probably successful with this method because he removes all apical and lateral buds forcing latent buds and budding in the collars. It does delay his season a bit, but in the Madeira climate, he has plenty of season - so who cares! He could leave some lateral buds and small branches with apical buds and get some earlier growth and figs, but he has an easy system that works for him.
 
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