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Trimming Olives
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Posted by Dino_Tsapatsaris 9B Florida (My Page) on Fri, Apr 15, 05 at 8:59
| I'm growing four olive trees in Florida (two Greek and two Italian varities.) There are not enough chill hours most years for them to fruit, but some years it is cool enough long enough (we get 150 to 350 chill hours.) My question is how do you prune them, and do they need to have their trunks painted white? And at what age do they start fruiting? |
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RE: Trimming Olives
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I’m going to describe you two styles of pruning and I recommend you to follow the second .
1.When transplanting the olive trees top them at 60-80 cm above the ground. During the first growing period, try to establish evenly arranged side branches around the centre and a bare trunk up to about 30-60cm. For the next 3-4 years remove the suckers and the ones that cross one another. Don’t prune them heavily at that age because that will set back the fructification. Then choose which 3-5 side branches you ‘ll keep, 20-30 cm apart each other and remove all the others and the main one. Prune during the winter. Paint them white if the trunks are without foliage and exposed to the sun (it’s a practice to avoid sunburns).
2. Don’t prune the first 6 years ! Then remove only the weak branches and top everything that is above 3m! It’s a bushy style that prevents the sunburns.
I know that my English are hard to understand but I believe you got the idea. |
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