Pruning and Canopy Management Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Coppicing and pollarding are forms of heading back: the main stem or branches are cut back hard to make the tree send out new shoots. Coppicing cuts at ground level and pollarding cuts at a height above the reach of browsing animals.

Thinning removes whole branches, deblossoming removes flowers, and ringing removes a ring of bark.

Coppicing cuts a tree back to near ground level, and pollarding cuts back to the trunk at a height, in both cases leaving a basal portion from which new shoots arise. This matches heading back, which is the removal of the terminal portion of a shoot or branch.

Answer: C

Heading back is the removal of the terminal portion of a shoot, leaving the basal portion intact, which makes the shoot branch lower down.

Thinning removes a whole shoot, girdling removes a ring of bark, and notching cuts a notch above a bud.

Heading back is done to make a tree branch lower down and to keep it within bounds. Cutting a shoot back to a bud makes the buds below grow into new shoots.

Answer: D

Herbicides are not used in canopy management of fruit crops. Canopy management uses training and pruning, rootstocks that control vigour and growth retardants to shape the canopy.

Herbicides control weeds, not the shape of the tree.

Canopy management means shaping the tree to get light into it, and it uses pruning, training, dwarfing rootstocks and growth retardants. Herbicides act on weeds and not on the tree canopy.