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Continued from Page 6<br />
hand, was similar to trees that were<br />
conventionally trained by hand.<br />
•Mechanical topping reduced yield of<br />
Monterey, especially in trees that had<br />
follow up scaffold selection by hand.<br />
•The most expensive pruning treatment<br />
was mechanical topping with<br />
follow up scaffold selection by hand.<br />
Summary<br />
Untrained trees and trees trained to<br />
multiple scaffolds are more susceptible<br />
to scaffold failure, especially during the<br />
development years. Untrained trees<br />
are also somewhat more prone to blow<br />
over the first couple of years due to a<br />
larger canopy. The more closely trees are<br />
planted down the row, the smaller they<br />
will stay and the less training and follow<br />
up pruning they will require.<br />
Training non-bearing trees is a<br />
compromise, often sacrificing a few<br />
hundred pounds to build a strong tree<br />
architecture to reduce the risk of future<br />
tree failure. A good strategy seems to<br />
be to train the trees during the first two<br />
Split scaffold poor training.<br />
Standard long pruning.<br />
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years to 3-5 scaffolds and head them<br />
back enough to support their own weight<br />
when growth resumes the next year. The<br />
longer you leave the scaffolds, the less<br />
rank regrowth and the fewer root suckers<br />
you will have the following year. However,<br />
if you “long prune” the scaffolds, you will<br />
need to tie the limbs to lessen the risk of<br />
them breaking out later. After training<br />
your trees for one or two years, you can<br />
likely abandon pruning except to remove<br />
limbs that are in the way of equipment<br />
or present safety hazards for equipment<br />
operators.<br />
Mechanical topping of young trees<br />
may offer a quick, relatively inexpensive<br />
way to reduce tree height, at least for one<br />
year. However, it appears that topping,<br />
just like all types of pruning, is an overall<br />
stunting process and likely reduces yield<br />
in many cases.<br />
Special thanks to cooperating growers<br />
Robert Longstreth and Vikram Mahal.<br />
800-425-8809<br />
Comments about this article? We want<br />
to hear from you. Feel free to email us at<br />
article@jcsmarketinginc.com<br />
8<br />
<strong>West</strong> <strong>Coast</strong> <strong>Nut</strong> <strong>September</strong> <strong>2019</strong>
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