After standing on the top of my step ladder last evening and still not being able to reach all the cherries, I have decided it is time to prune my cherry trees next winter/spring. Other than shaping it when it was still young, it has had very little removed over the last 12 years. Google has given me conflicting opinions on proper methods of pruning, the most common being not to prune it at all. That is not at an option, I am tired of having to use all of the ladder and its now shading out the other fruit trees around it.

It still retains, despite the lack of pruning, a desirable "vase" shape so my intention is to simply reduce its height. Anyone care to offer some insight or ideology on how to go about handling the pruning of a sour cherry? Is it as simple as cutting everything at a certain height or should I be selecting certain branches ?

cut out the upper center and shorten to desired height.shorten and let light to the center.this is what i'd do but i'm just learning and look forward to peeler and the other pro's to chime in.

What ever you decide on doing wait till next fall to do It.

pcr2 - I agree 100%

Beav - Why next fall? I usually prune around Valentines day.

BTW I am right on the line of zones 6A and 6B

February Is a good time. The tree has gone dormant and has stored all Of It's nutrients In the root system. The same can be said about late fall. The rule of thumb Is If the month has a R In it your good to go.

making sense of fall or early spring late winter

maybe a better way to put it you want the tree not frozen, you want no insects around for a while and you want to make clean cuts and you want it before new buds form.

typically just as a tree is coming out of dormancy or about to come out of dormancy no leaves no new buds but past the coldest part of winter where the cold sun can burn the cuts.

you may want to paint the cuts if they are bigger than an inch in diameter if your about to get good sap flow they will seal themselves but if that may be weeks off yet a little paint will protect the ends although wind burn probably isn't a big issue in zone 6.

in commercial tart cherries they shake the tree to get the fruit out

I agree with cutting the main vertical about even height with the top of your ladder

you may benefit more from apple pruning books , as cherries are picked by machine now so don't get pruned as much

No problem with summer pruning especially if you feel the tree has more vigor than you want. Summer pruning takes away some of the photosynthesizing potential of the tree, reduces the amount of translocated energy back to the roots at winter, and generally increase fruit bud formation. You can have minor issues with sunscald so keep that in mind when removing large branches. With stone fruit remember they are more prone to fungal diseases so any summer pruning that is done should be timed for a dry spell. Just like any fruit tree keeping a thinner canopy is better than a dense one for a reduction in disease issues and increasing flower bud formation. Dont remove more than 1/3rd of the tree in any 365 day period.

Best to prune when the tree is winter dormant, less of a shock.

GCP - I would love to shake the trees to harvest them, as I find picking the small fruit tedious and boring, but I doubt I can justify the cost of one of machines when I only have 4 sour cherries trees.

NEY - Thanks for the info. I normally would never consider summer pruning, primarily due the aforementioned loss of photosynthetic capacity AND increased chance of disease, but they are really starting to crowd the apples and peaches next to them. I may just tackle the largest of the four trees and see where I end up. Worst case scenario is I have less cherries to pick.

This man speaks truth. I prune summer and winter. Summer pruning doesn’t encourage new growth but winter does. Just depends on what you are trying to do with the removal of each branch.

Best time to prune is when the shears are sharp. Avoid taking off more than a third, and try to avoid removing large diameter branches as much as you can.

Pruning when the tree Is dormant stimulates new growth?

Yep for the reason you previously stated. The energy from the previous year is stored in the roots over winter, that energy is going to go somewhere the following growing season. If you prune when the tree is dormant the big boost of energy in the spring is generally going to increase vegetative growth substantially more than if you hadnt pruned. Not necessarily a bad thing, just depends on what your goal is.