http://jacksonville.com/lifestyles/home_and_garden/2010-01-23/story/garden_qa_the_dos_and_donts_for_pruning_citrus_trees


Any pruning of citrus should be approached cautiously
and not done until the danger of freezes is gone.

Garden Q&A: The do's and don'ts for pruning citrus trees

By Becky Wern
Story updated at 8:16 PM on Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010

Picking my grapefruit this year certainly reminded me that I want my tree to stay shorter. Is it possible to trim citrus?

Commercial growers prune their citrus. It is a necessary evil and must be approached cautiously.

When you remove limbs from a tree, you remove the food-generating leaves. Fewer leaves mean less fruit.

Still, a citrus tree left unpruned gets too tall and shades out the center of the tree, leading to bare branches inside the canopy.

Citrus shouldn't be trimmed until we are past the danger of freezes. We will be taking that more seriously than we have in the past.

It is wiser to remove some of the top of the canopy every year or two rather than going in once every five years and removing a large quantity. The frequent pruning schedule ensures that there will still be enough canopy to sustain a good crop.

And on those marginally cold nights this year, the foliage canopy helped trap heat rising from the ground, reducing damage to the tree.

Citrus pruning is mainly devoted to thinning and opening the canopy for light penetration as well as to keep the canopy low. During the first years, there is no need to cut, as research has shown that any cut to a young tree reduces root growth. This is due to the equilibrium between foliage and the root system. A plant is a biological unit. The only pruning on young trees should be to eliminate the central leader branch. With some weak citrus varieties, such as limes, satsumas, etc. it is not convenient to make any cut at the beginning. The choice of branches to eliminate is based on the concept that any space within the canopy must be covered by only one branch. It is not convenient to let surplus branches occupy the same aerial space. Anyway, thinning must not deplete any canopy sector. Suckers should only be kept if they occupy free spaces. After a few years they bear fruit, but all interior suckers must be cut. -Millet (1,097-)

I’ve done some pruning last week to a Meyer. The only thing I was looking for was crossing branches that were close to toughing.

I notice some criss crossing branches and some bark removed from branches rubbing. I hate to prune these branches because they are large.