Pruning offers several benefits for your trees if carried out the right way. When implemented by professional arborists, it can significantly enhance tree growth, vitality, and fruit production. Two major reasons why this is so are the increases in sun exposure and airflow that can result.
Pruning to Increase Sun Exposure
Sunlight is the fuel that powers tree growth (and plant growth in general). It makes photosynthesis, the means by which trees generate their own sustenance, possible. This doesn’t imply that all trees benefit from full sun exposure. Many are shade-tolerant species evolved for the filtered light and shroud of the forest understory. Such trees don’t necessarily love being blasted by direct sunshine. But even a shaded tree can benefit from opening up a few more targeted portals of light into its crown.
Indeed, trees do their own “self-pruning” that’s partly connected to this very issue. Branches set lower in the canopy and shaded out by upper or exterior limbs become an energy drain. Trees often allow these shrouded, low-production branches to senesce and drop in the interest of energy-efficiency.
By pruning branches that are excessively shading large parts of the crown, or interior tree limbs that are on the decline, you can maximize energy input and growth. This kind of pruning can also positively impact other parts of your garden or yard of course. After all, large, full branches may be sun-starving other trees, shrubs, or groundcover plants by casting them in deep shade.
It’s worth noting as well that certain tree-targeting insect pests prefer dark, shady hideaways. Letting in more sunlight can, to some degree, make a tree less attractive to them.
The Importance of Airflow
Pruning doesn’t just let more sunlight in. It also improves ventilation around and within the tree canopy.
Allowing for better airflow by removing buffering limbs helps lower in-crown humidity. Stagnant air and excess damp can promote fungal and bacterial growth that may result in disease or rot. Strategic pruning boosts air circulation within the canopy and lets in drying breezes that ward against this.
Cons of Tree Pruning
Pruning, especially when poorly done, can have negative impacts on trees. An improperly-placed cut may open up a pathway for infestation or disease. Pruning done at the wrong time of year may adversely impact a tree’s growth or fruit production.
Another potential downside of tree pruning is the inherent risk of the activity itself. It’s easy enough to cut yourself with a pruner or saw, and branches you’re working on may come down unexpectedly.
Both of these are greatly minimized when you let a professional arborist do the pruning for you.
Pruning by a Professional Arborist Can Enhance Tree Growth and Health
Pruning, to be clear, provides advantages to your tree beyond ramping up sun exposure and airflow. It can also focus a tree’s resources to make larger fruit. Furthermore, it can eliminate broken, diseased, or otherwise compromised branches that pose a danger to life, limb, and property.
In order to tap into those benefits, it’s best to go with the expertise and credentials of professionally-trained arborists. Do-it-yourself pruning can be risky, even life-threatening. And, all too often, it ends up hurting a tree more than helping it. If you live in Corona, CA or a surrounding area and need tree trimming services, make your first call to Melendez Tree Service.
