Reevaluating Summer Hedging and Root Pruning for Intensive Apple Orchard Systems: A Review

Some commercial apple orchards have recently been adopting hedging as an alternative, or supplement, to hand pruning. With rising labor costs across the United States, alternatives to hand pruning and current training systems require consideration. Root pruning has also been used to suppress tree vigor. Most of the research on these two practices was performed on central leader trees on semi-vigorous or semi-dwarfing rootstocks. Since the terms referring to pruning and hedging are used inconsistently in the literature, the aim of this review is to define different types of pruning and also to summarize information pertaining the feasibility of using hedging and root pruning in modern orchard systems.