IT IS no longer necessary to wait for winter in order to prune deciduous fruit trees.
Those wasteful days have long since past.
If branches are growing in the wrong place, cut them out right now, even if still carrying some fruit.
There is usually plenty left on other branches, otherwise wait until after it has been harvested.
Let's look at some common backyard fruit trees.
If they are growing in healthy, fertile soil and are well watered, many will be reaching for the sky right now.
Apple and pear trees are good examples. They produce masses of new shoots, the most useless of which are growing inwards or upwards in the centre of a canopy.
Others are badly-placed, crossed or just keep getting in the way. It does no harm to remove them while in active growth. In fact, even large pruning wounds heal much more rapidly at this time of the year.
Most backyard fruit trees can be trained flat against a fence or wall or kept to a simple, wine-glass shape: a circle of branches angled outwards from the trunk with an open space inside the canopy.
Those grown flat like a fan or espaliered are kept to shape by constant summer pruning, pinching out or tying down over-vigorous or wayward shoots.
Free-standing trees are usually trained to the wine-glass or open-centre shape because it allows plenty of sunlight into the canopy to ensure the fruit ripens evenly.
An open centre also encourages birds and other predators to get deep inside to feed off pest insects and grubs.
So cut out all inwards-growing branches or shoots almost flush with the branch from which they spring, without leaving a stub.
You'll still be left with a circle of vigorous, leafy young shoots pointing skywards, growing from the main outer branches.
With established, mature trees these young shoots can be cut back to leave stubs containing only three or four buds.
The top buds will shoot again but make little growth before winter when they can be cut out. This treatment deliberately curtails excess growth and keeps most home garden trees under control.
Young immature trees are pruned and trained differently.
By all means cut out inwards-growing branches, but long shoots on the outer parts of the canopy can be gradually tied down so they are growing more towards a horizontal position than a vertical one.
I drive a few anchor pegs into the ground around these trees and using strong twine, pull the branches down slowly over several weeks.
Don't do this job too quickly or they will break.
An alternative is to use weights to do the trick.
I use 2kg bags of stones hooked over over-vigorous branches (they look like little Christmas puddings dangling from the trees among the apples and pears).
The more horizontal a branch, the less vigorously it grows, but the more fruit it will bear.
Over time, the regular weight of crops keeps apple and pear trees to an umbrella shape and very little pruning is needed from then onwards.
Most of my own mature apple and pear trees are now kept to a height of about 3m and very little pruning or training is needed.
Peach and nectarine trees are summer-pruned to open up the centres immediately after the fruit has been picked.
Outer branches are left untouched, because it is this year's growth that produces next year's crop.
After pruning they are watered heavily. And of course, all pruning debris must be raked and carted away.
