5 Things to do this Fall to Prepare your Fruit Trees for Winter

Winter is coming! I hope you had an awesome summer and hopefully you were able to harvest a lot of fruit! Now what? It's time to get your trees ready for winter. Be proactive and make sure your are thinking about the long term health of your trees. Consider what you can do now that will save you time and energy in the future. What can you do now to improve your harvest next fall? Here are just a few things that I like to do before the snow starts to fall.

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Mulch your Fruit Trees

This years I watered my trees zero time. Yup, didn't turn the water on once and the fruit was beautiful! Did I mention that it was the hottest, driest summer that I can remember? I know this is not always possible in some climates, but a good heavy layer of mulch around your trees will reduce weeds, conserve water, and slowly decompose, giving your trees the nutrients that they need to thrive. Make sure your mulch ring extends beyond the drip line of your trees. This will allow your tree to funnel autumn rains to fibrous roots out away from the trunk. By mulching your fruit trees in the fall, you will be able to capture and hold more winter moisture in the soil that your tree can use when it comes out of dormancy in the spring.

Wrap your Fruit Trees

If you have planted the right trees for your climate, then they will naturally survive your cold winter temperatures, but sometimes dark colored bark will sun burn when the south or southwest sun shines down on it. Cold ambient temperatures and warm sunlight can cause your tree's bark to expand in the day and contract at night. This expansion and contraction will cause bark to split and peel away from the sap wood, exposing it to the elements and will allow wood boring insects to feed on your tree. Wrapping your tree with a white fabric wrap will protect your fruit trees from sun scald in the winter.

Prune your Fruit Trees

Wait! You prune your fruit trees in the fall!? No, but you can if you need to. Let me explain. Some fruit trees develop problems in the summer that can be fixed in the fall, or any time of the year. For example, if you have dead, damaged, or diseased branches on your tree. They can be removed anytime of the year. Some branches fail under heavy fruit loads. If you have broken branches, they can be removed in the fall. Some trees have weak spots where included bark is present as a result of co-dominant leaders. If heavy snow loads in the winter will cause weak branches to fail, then it is better to do preventative maintenance in the fall than it is to wait for them the fail in the winter. In milder climates some large fruit trees can be pruned in the fall. For more information please visit these links:

Can Fruit Trees be Pruned in the Fall?

Here are few other links about pruning that might interest you:

How to Prune Fruit Trees in 9 Simple Lessons

When is the Best Time to Prune Fruit Trees?

How Often Should Fruit Trees Be Pruned?

4 Seasons of Pruning Fruit Trees

Water your Fruit Trees

In some climates rain and snow is not a common occurrence. No matter how much mulch you put down, your trees still need supplemental watering. Just because the temperatures drop and your tree is dormant, doesn't mean you can stop watering. It is important to make sure your fruit trees enter the winter months fully hydrated. Give your fruit trees a good deep watering this fall and maybe a few more in the winter if you don't receive any precipitation. Fruit trees are still alive and need water even when they're dormant.

Spray your Fruit Trees

Some diseases overwinter on your fruit trees. For example blister mites on apples and pears will migrate out of leaves and hide in the bud scales and re-populate leaves in the spring. Other examples include fungal diseases that cover trees with fungal spores in the fall so they can reinoculate your tree when it comes out of dormancy. If you have any of these diseases, you may benefit from an organic fall treatment, but make sure you know what you are treating and the safest way to treat it. For most fruit tree diseases, timing is critical.

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