This month Woodland Ways will prune the fruit trees at Pond Covert. The little trees are just coming into their fourth year and stood up remarkably well to the gales in December. The high winds have left many fallen and half fallen trees in Pond Covert and at Natterer’s Wood. We will leave these in situ as they make perfect homes for dozens of species of invertebrates and become a food source by attracting mosses, lichens and fungi. These organisms also aid the return of nutrients to the soil through the nitrogen cycle. In previous visits to Pond Covert, planting or path laying, we have encountered one of the inhabitants, the violet ground beetle, (Carabas violaceus), large, up to three centimetres, shiny, black, with elegant violet edges to its wing casings. These insects are nocturnal hunters and rely on deep leaf litter and decaying wood to rest during the daylight hours, so will benefit from the habitat provided by the fallen trees.
Fortunately, our fruit trees do not seem to have played host to any insect or fungal pests so far, and are looking healthy and thriving. When pruning this year, we will be looking to shorten the previous years’ growth by about a third. This will encourage new branches to develop and form the ‘goblet’ shape which we are trying to achieve. We will also cut any branches that are growing into the centre of the tree, preventing light from reaching in. We had our first fruit last season, and we hope, with effective pruning, to increase our yield this year.
