Pomegranate is a tufted shrub with many branches and leaves and poor ventilation and light transmission. In order to make it grow and develop healthily, pruning and shaping are very important.
Pruning pomegranate trees is best done in summer and late autumn. At this time, pruning can be carried out according to the habit of pomegranate tree branching and flowering.
So how should pomegranate trees be pruned? What aspects should we pay attention to? The following points should be noted:
① Don't chop up the mixed buds.
Pomegranate trees can sprout new shoots 2-3 times a year, but spring shoots bloom more, summer shoots and autumn shoots bloom less, and most of them can't bear fruit.
The flowering branches of pomegranate tree germinated from the fruiting mother branches formed in the previous year. These results show that the terminal bud of the mother branch is relatively large, and several lateral buds below the terminal bud are also quite full.
Moreover, there are both branches and leaves and flower organs in the bud, which can blossom after germination. So this kind of bud is called "mixed bud".
Don't cut this branch short in late autumn and early spring every year, otherwise the mixed bud will be cut off and it will not bloom.
(2) Keep the parent branch of the current year.
After a period of growth, all the new branches that did not bloom in that year stopped elongation growth, and their terminal buds and several lateral buds at the top began to differentiate into "mixed buds", thus forming fruiting mother branches to prepare for the fruiting branches in the next year.
Keep the bearing branches like this and don't prune them.
③ Prune too many and too dense branches.
When nutrition is insufficient, some new lateral branches of pomegranate trees will not elongate or form terminal buds after they grow to a certain extent.
Clusters of leaves will grow at the top of the branches, which will often interfere with the tree shape and hinder the light transmission and ventilation of the trees, so they should be cut off from the base.
There are also some branches that are particularly vigorous. They will continue to grow in spring, summer and autumn, and can also produce "secondary branches and tertiary branches", but they cannot form "mixed buds" and will not bear branches next year.
Therefore, these long branches should be pruned in summer to prevent them from consuming too much nutrition, promote the formation of full lateral buds between leaf axils, and accumulate nutrients for new bearing branches in the coming year.