How to Prune an Apple Tree for a Bountiful Harvest

If you want to keep up that healthy habit of an apple a day, it’s time to pull your pruning shears out of the shed. Though dense branches look lush, overgrown apple trees actually struggle to produce fruit. Luckily, you can set yourself up for a promising harvest with a few simple snips. We’ll show you everything you need to know about how to prune an apple tree.

Why Should I Prune My Apple Trees?

It may seem counterintuitive to cut back growth, but there are a bunch of reasons you should prune your fruit trees. It’s not just about removing dead, diseased, or dying branches. Pruning helps:

• Produce more fruit

• Produce larger fruit

• Keep your tree at a height you can manage

• Reduce shading, which strengthens branches and encourages flowering

• Improve air circulation, which helps ward off insects and disease

When left unchecked, apple trees can get quite dense—but not every branch will grow an apple. Fruit grows on what’s known as spurs, the 3- to 5-inch branches that flower. Unproductive branches, which will never grow fruit, take energy away from the spurs. Without pruning, you’ll notice your tree stops producing as many spurs and starts producing more unproductive growth. That’s when it’s time for a snip.

How Much Does It Cost to Prune Apple Trees?

For most homeowners, tree pruning costs $75 to $1,500 or more, which is similar to the cost of professional tree trimming. Though people use these terms interchangeably, they do have slightly different meanings. You trim trees to control their shape, but you prune trees to encourage healthy growth. A professional tree service can do either job, depending on your needs.

When to Prune Apple Trees

Timing is part of plant pruning 101—and fruit trees aren’t that different from other flowering plants. The best time to prune an apple tree is either in late winter or early spring, right before it pops out of dormancy and starts producing new growth. In general, you’ll want to do some light pruning every year, though if you have a mature tree, you can get away with hard pruning every three years. You’ll know it needs a chop when you notice a shrinking harvest.

Unless you’re removing dead or diseased branches, you should avoid pruning in the summer and fall. Pruning during this time can leave your tree vulnerable to disease, insect infestation, and winter damage.

How to Prune an Apple Tree

No matter the cut, when you’re pruning fruit trees, focus on preserving fruit-bearing shoots by identifying which buds will develop into flowers and which will develop into leaves. Flower buds (which will eventually turn into fruit) are larger and grow from fruiting spurs or at the very tip of short branches. Vegetative branches (the kind that turns into leaves) are smaller and typically grow along the length of a shoot. 

Follow these steps to get your apple tree in tip-top shape. 

Prep for the Job

Before you can prune your apple tree, you’ll need to gather the right tree-cutting tools and know how to make the ideal cut. While you might use a chainsaw for tree removal, the three main tools used for pruning are:

• Pruning shears for smaller branches

• Lopping shears for medium-sized branches

• Saw for the largest woody branches 

Make sure your tools are clean (to prevent bacteria from spreading into the fresh cut) and sharp (to prevent accidents). Cut shoots at a 45-degree angle a quarter inch above the bud when trimming back growth. This apple tree pruning diagram will show you the perfect cut.

You’ll also want to follow safety tips like only pruning small trees (those where you don’t need to climb a ladder to reach most branches), working with a buddy, and staying aware of falling branches. You should wear safety equipment like gloves and goggles, and only take on this task if you know you can do it safely. 

Remove Dead, Damaged, and Diseased Branches

Even healthy trees probably have some unhealthy growth, which makes them vulnerable to insect infestations and further disease. Use your pruning or lopping shears to remove dead, damaged, or dying branches as soon as you notice them—no matter the time of year. These branches are typically:

• Darker than healthy branches

• Brittle rather than flexible

• Covered in peeling bark

• Discolored

Remove Suckers, Whorls, and Water Sprouts

You don’t want your tree wasting energy on branches that will never produce fruit, so remove the unproductive growth. There are three different types:

• Suckers: these branches grow at the very base of the tree 

• Water sprouts: tiny, thin shoots that grow upright from large branches or dormant buds

• Whorls: when three or more small branches grow in a single location

You can use your pruning shears to cut off suckers and water sprouts at their base. Whorls are a little bit trickier since you’ll have multiple branches growing from a single location. Figure out which smaller branch on the whorl is the largest and healthiest, then cut the rest back. If you leave them in place, they’ll just weigh down and weaken the main branch.

Remove Lower Branches

If you’re working with a mature tree, you can prune back branches that are within 4 feet from the ground. Since these branches won’t get a lot of sunlight, it’s unlikely that they'll grow fruit. Even if they do, the fruit can easily become an all-you-can-eat buffet for deer, squirrels, and other wildlife. Instead of attracting pests, just lop them off.

Remove Downward-Growing Branches

Sometimes branches grow toward the ground. These generally get too much shade to grow fruit and can encroach on productive branches as they grow. This process can damage the scaffold branches that make up your apple tree’s frame and block sunlight to branches that would otherwise grow fruit. 

Prune away downward-facing branches and any smaller branches that are rubbing against the larger structural branches.

Clip Competing Leaders

When you’re pruning, you’ll need to consider the shape of your tree. Most of the time, apple trees are grown to have a central trunk called a leader (as opposed to peach or plum trees, which are often shaped to have multiple leaders that branch off from the central trunk). 

Unless you need to maintain a shorter tree, use your saw to cut back large branches that compete with the leader. These will grow even bigger and lean to a misshapen tree.  

Thin Out Your Tree

With apple trees, thick growth isn’t necessarily a good thing. You want to make sure sunlight can reach the fruit. Thin out your tree by:

• Removing branches that grow towards the interior of the tree

• Removing branches that are too close together

• Pruning back 20% to 30% of last year’s active growth

When you’re heading (trimming) as opposed to thinning (completely removing) a branch, make sure you cut at a 45-degree angle a quarter inch above an outward facing bud. As a rule, don’t remove more than one-fifth of your tree’s volume if you regularly prune your tree. If your tree is very overgrown, don’t remove more than one-third.

Make Your Final Cuts

In general, your tree should have a pyramid shape—with branches on top that are a little shorter than the branches in the middle or bottom. It shouldn’t look cluttered, either. Before you pack away your pruning tools, assess the final shape of your tree and make some final cuts as needed.

Cull the Immature Fruit

About 20 to 40 days after your tree flowers, it may start dropping some of the unripe fruit. When this happens, you can give your tree a helping hand and remove anywhere from 30% to 50% of the unripe fruit. This helps you get bigger apples (as opposed to a lot of tiny apples) because your tree isn’t wasting energy on volume. 

Tips for Pruning Apple Trees

If you’ve never pruned a tree before, it can feel like a daunting task—especially if your tree is overgrown. You’ll need to make a few judgment calls about which branches are the best to remove. The good news is that mature trees are resilient. Even if you make a mistake, it’s unlikely to kill your tree, especially if you do it carefully. These tree pruning tips can help you get started:

• Prune during late winter or early spring.

• Never trim more than 30% of a tree’s foliage at one time.

• Cut branches at a 45-degree angle to prevent rot.

• If you’re choosing between two branches, prune the branch with fewer buds and blossoms.

• Don’t prune newly planted trees or saplings until they’ve consistently produced fruit for a couple of seasons (though you can remove dead or broken branches).

• Keep your pruning tools sharp to prevent trauma to the branch.

• Clean and disinfect your tools to prevent the spreading of diseases.

• Completely clear away all cut branches. They’ll only attract insects and disease if left on the ground.

DIY vs. Hire a Pro

Pruning is an essential part of landscape maintenance. Most homeowners can perform light pruning on their own. You don’t even need a green thumb—just some knowledge, tools, and time. 

That said, not all apple trees are easy. If your tree is larger or very overgrown, we strongly suggest that you hire a local arborist or tree trimming service near you. They’ll know how to trim apple trees to get the healthiest fruit, and you won’t have to deal with climbing a ladder and sawing off thick, woody branches.