Winter Pruning of Pomegranate Helps Remaining Stems to Remain Erect

Q. Why do my pomegranate trees have large branches lying on the ground?

Young pomegranates sucker from the base every year when they are young. These suckers need to be removed in winter pruning so that 5 to 6 larger stems remain. This winter pruning and sucker removal helps build the future fruit supporting structure of the pomegranate tree.

A.  I dont have a picture of these limbs on the ground but just went through this at an orchard where I am consulting. The pomegranates were three to four years old and had not been pruned for one or two seasons due to a poorly undiagnosed disease problem (probably crown rot due to frequent irrigations and lots of wood chip mulch applied near the base). This disease problem was spread between plants through pruning. When they were finally pruned this past spring, some of the larger stems laid on the ground. 

Pomegranate dieback disease (probably crown rot due to mulch keeping the stems wet and spread on hand pruners at pruning time), Yes, you can water pomegranate too often.

This happened for a couple of reasons. First, there was ALOT of new sucker growth from the base that caused some crowding because they were young. Sucker growth slows done considerably after about 8 to 10 years of growth and an established canopy. Secondly, they were growing like gangbusters with most of that disease gone. They are flowering and fruiting heavily causing a lot of weight on the ends of these stems.

This pomegranate was not pruned every winter and got out of hand. By this age, the tree should have hand its architecture established so the fruit does not lie on the ground.

This can happen to pomegranates when they have been in the ground for a short time and not pruned regularly. Pomegranates should have emerging suckers removed from so that only five or six of the larger stems remain. Then side growth is pruned from these main stems to about knee height to help prevent fruit born on thick woody stems from lying on the ground. This results in larger fruit produced on the older and thick 5 to 6 stems remaining and fruit produced on these smaller, side, lower branches will not lie on the ground.

This pomegranate has been pruned so that five or six larger stems remain. All the smaller suckers were removed. These remaining larger stems will bare the weight of a full load of fruit in the future. The next step is to remove the side branches to knee height.

The remaining stems will begin flowering and bend toward the ground as the heavy fruit bends them over. As these stems get older, they will get stronger. New growth comes from the remaining bent stems and not as sucker growth from the base. Removing the sucker growth from the bottom encourages the remaining stems to grow strong and erect without crowding them. Removal of sucker growth must be done frequently when they are young until the new growth emerges from the larger stems and not as suckers at the base. You are nearly done. Remove side growth from any of these major stems to about knee height so the fruit produced by these branches do not lie on the ground.