Arborist explains how much of an old cherry tree's branches can safely be cut
Arborist Edgars Neilands warns that overly aggressive pruning of an eight-metre-tall cherry tree can do more harm than good. He recommends removing no more than about 30-50% of its leaf canopy per year.
On the TV24 program "Uz līnijas," arborist Edgars Neilands, head of the company "Labie koki," answered a viewer's question about caring for an old cherry tree roughly eight metres tall, many of whose branches have dried out. The viewer wanted to keep the tree and asked whether it could be cut down to about two metres, hoping new branches would later grow from the trunk.
Neilands said the answer depends on the cherry variety. A sour cherry that has reached eight metres is already a very large tree, and after such drastic pruning it may fail to properly regenerate. Sweet cherries are hardier and can grow up to 10-12 metres tall, but even for these the arborist does not recommend simply cutting the tree down to a bare trunk at two metres — several main scaffold branches should be preserved, which can then gradually be shortened and shaped.
How much can be cut
Neilands stressed that the extent of pruning matters: no more than about 30% of a tree's leaf surface should be removed in a single year, though in some cases this can be extended to around 50%. The reason is that leaves also supply energy to the tree's roots. If too large a portion of foliage is removed at once, the roots lack sufficient energy, may begin to die off, decay can develop, and the tree's overall condition can deteriorate.
For this reason, cutting an eight-metre cherry tree down to two metres would be considered an extremely drastic intervention, leaving the tree with only a small fraction of its original leaf surface — a level of stress that could threaten its future survival.
