Fruit tree pruning by crop: what extension services say about apple, pear, peach, apricot and cherry

This page reports what the named codes, regulators and makers say. It is not training and does not teach the work. Each publication below is a university extension sheet written for its own state or region, not a law or a standard. The pruning standards that cover landscape trees are on the pruning standards guide, and shade tree timing is on the pruning timing page. The courses that teach tree work are on the certifications guide and the chainsaw tickets guide.

The five crops side by side

Crop	Training system the sources name	Timing window the sources give
Apple	Modified leader or central leader with several wide-angled scaffolds, giving a pyramid shape; Missouri also describes a vertical axis system with a dominant leader in high-density plantings	Dormant season; Illinois gives, for heavy pruning of fruit trees generally, February 1 to March 15 in the southern half of the state and February 15 to April 1 in the northern half; Maryland says late winter (February or March); Oregon State says after the danger of fall or early winter freeze has passed and before spring growth
Pear	Central leader or modified central leader; Maryland says pear is trained and pruned much like apple but takes less overall pruning after the first branch selection, because pear grows more upright	Maryland: late winter (February or March). Illinois: late February and early March in central Illinois, with apple.
Peach and nectarine	Open center (vase). Penn State says a central leader is possible for standard trees but not recommended, since it takes more pruning and yields tend to be lower.	Clemson: mid-February to early March, with no pruning from October to January. Penn State: avoid pruning before late February and before predicted low temperatures. Illinois: just before or during bloom, last of the fruit trees. Summer pruning in July (Penn State, Clemson).
Apricot	Central leader or open center; Illinois says to follow its apple instructions for the first and its peach instructions for the second	Dormant season, every year on mature trees; Illinois puts the amount of annual pruning above standard apple and below peach
Cherry	Open center, in the Illinois blog post. The Illinois cherry page allows a central leader or an open center for sour cherries and names a central leader as best for sweet cherries.	Mid-March before the buds begin to swell, after apples and pears; sweet cherries need less severe annual pruning than the crops listed first in the Illinois fruit-tree guide

Apple

Clemson's sheet on apple and pear (HGIC 1351, February 8, 2019) says training starts on the day of planting. For an unbranched one-year whip it gives a heading height of 28 to 32 inches for standard trees and 30 to 35 inches for spur-type and semi-dwarf trees. It sets scaffold spacing at least 6 inches apart vertically and says to retain between three and six branches in the first summer. It separates two cuts: heading, which removes the end of a shoot, and thinning, which removes a shoot to its point of origin. It also says summer work is advised for waterspouts, root suckers and fire-blight-infected wood.

Illinois sets the limits on how much comes off. Its blog post (February 18, 2025) gives a 25 percent cap on the wood removed from any fruit tree in one dormant season, which it calls the pruning budget, and says that going over it throws the tree into a flush of water sprouts. The Illinois Making Pruning Cuts page says on dwarf and semidwarf apples a lighter summer cut and a lighter dormant cut can stand in for moderate to heavy dormant pruning, and that pruning in August has a dwarfing effect on apple trees carrying a crop because the number of leaves is reduced.

Missouri's vertical axis sheet (G6024, reviewed March 2026) describes high-density systems of more than 500 trees per acre that can fruit in the second or third year after planting. It says few pruning cuts are made in the first three years and that in March the narrow pyramid is maintained by removing vigorous shoots that compete with the leader. Oregon State's home orchard bulletin (PNW 400, revised February 2025) says training to a central leader takes four winters and that the leader can be removed in the third or fourth year of growth once the scaffolds are set.

Pear

Clemson says pear naturally develops narrow-angled, upright branches and names three ways it lists to open them: weighting the branches, tying them to pegs in the ground, or bracing them apart with spacer sticks. Maryland (Updated January 20, 2026) says wide crotch angles are not essential for pear, because pear wood is tougher and less likely to split. Oregon State gives a heading height of 24 inches at planting, and says commercial pears in the Pacific Northwest are mostly grown on a central leader or modified central leader.

Peach and nectarine

The three peach sources agree on an open-center shape and disagree on dates and heights. Clemson (HGIC 1355, revised June 8, 2022) gives a planting height of 30 inches and a mature height of 8 to 9 feet. Penn State (updated June 10, 2026) says good pruning keeps standard trees at 7 or 8 feet. Oregon State gives 12 to 20 inches above the ground at planting and says peaches crop more consistently and have larger fruit when pruned heavily.

Clemson and Oregon State say peaches fruit on one-year-old shoots. Penn State says pruning temporarily lowers a tree's tolerance to cold, which is its reason for the late February start. Clemson gives a different reason for its mid-February start: late winter pruning reduces winter injury and infection by the bacterial canker organism. Illinois goes the other way on timing, saying peach and nectarine wounds heal faster and with less chance of infection when cut just before or during bloom. Penn State describes July as the month for summer pruning to select scaffolds on young trees. It says pruning in summer two to four weeks before harvest moderately raises red color without changing fruit size or sugar.

Apricot and cherry

Illinois' apricot page says most apricot fruit is borne on short spurs that stay productive for up to three years, and that considerable thinning-out pruning induces new spurs each year. Oregon State says apricots usually develop many branches in the nursery and that pruning bearing trees is mostly thinning out excess wood and heading long shoots. For cherries the sources used here give less: the Illinois blog post names mid-March and an open center, and the Illinois fruit-tree guide ranks sweet cherries as needing less severe annual pruning.

Cuts and wound treatment

The Illinois Making Pruning Cuts page says cuts are placed at the outer edge of the branch collar with no stub left, and that treating pruning wounds is not necessary and may retard healing. The research on that question is on the wound dressings guide. What the standards call a proper cut is on the pruning standards guide.

What the sheets leave out

Penn State, Clemson, Illinois, Missouri, Maryland and Oregon State write for their own climates, and each states or implies as much. Crops beyond these five, among them plum, citrus, fig, grape, persimmon and quince, are not covered here because no sheet for them was opened and read on October 9, 2026.