This week, second generation orchardist Ashley Rowe is here to share how we prune pear trees in the winter to prepare for a bountiful harvest next year.
Our growers find JOY in constantly thinking ahead to be the best possible stewards of their land, allowing their fruit to flourish.
Video Transcript:
“Welcome to Farm Friday! My name is Ashley, and I want to show you one of the things that we do during the winter with our trees. So right now we’re in a pear block. We’ve got Anjous and Bartlett pears in this area, and as you can see there’s a lot of these branches shooting straight up. In the winter time, what we do is we come through and we prune them. Pruning means we take a pair of loppers and we cut off branches that don’t serve us, so we’re already looking towards harvest of next year. We’re looking for the buds that will produce fruit and we want to make sure that there’s enough space for that fruit to be able to grow the way it needs to. We want to get rid of the branches that are congestive. We’re looking for branches like this that are just blind wood, they won’t have any fruit. We’re keeping an eye out for little tiny buds that we’re hoping will produce fruit for next year. It’s a lot of time, but it’s what we do to keep our trees happy, healthy, and getting us ready for harvest for next year already!”
