How to Prune Pear Trees in Winter

Hi this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment we are going to talk about how to prune pear trees in winter. Now pears are such a wonderful fruit and in the winter time they just are dormant. And that's the best time to prune them. And the rule of thumb is that you want to prune out all the damaged diseased and any of the real blanky or dead looking branches out of the tree. And so you never want to cut back more then one third of the tree at any one time. And that way it will grow lush and you'll have lots of fruit for the next year. And the rule of thumb is that when it's a small tree you want to prune for shape. When it gets to be a larger tree, you want to prune for fruit. So you want to make sure when it's smaller that you just concentrate on three or four main branches and trim out all the other branches. Where when it's a mature tree you want to really thin it out so that you get larger and better fruits. And the best time to actually spray your tree down with any type of vegetable oil if you are killing any bugs is in the winter as well. That way you'll have lots of fruit in your pear tree the next summer.