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Hello.
I'm Jody Gale, extension agent with Utah State University
Extension Service.
Thank you for joining us today.
In this video segment, I'd like to talk a little bit
about pruning, and we're going to start out
in talking specifically about pruning tools.
Any pruning job and any job we do
is a lot easier if you had good tools to work with.
Got a number of things here.
You don't have to buy all these kinds of tools,
but there's a few things in particular
that are really important that make
a pruning job a lot easier.
Let's start out with loppers.
This is a real common pruning tool.
This is a relatively kind of a medium-sized lopper.
These have a rubber bumper here.
And as you make pruning cuts, and especially if you're
doing lots of pruning, those little rubber bumpers
make not as much stress on your elbows
and it makes it a lot more comfortable job to prune.
The type of lopper you do not want to buy
is this type, which is very inexpensive.
There's two metal bumps that come together
and they just crash together.
They make your arms very tired and are
very hard on your elbows.
So you don't want to buy this type.
The $4 or $5 that were paid for this was still too much money.
To get a good pair like this, you'll spend $20 to $25.
You don't need to spend a lot of money,
but this is a good investment.
If you really want to go all out,
this is a very expensive pair of professional pruners.
Again, have the rubber bumper here.
These have wooden handles.
There's nothing wrong with wooden
handles as long as they're very straight grain with no knots.
The wood is somewhat flexible, and to go along
with this rubber bumper makes your pruning task
quite comfortable.
So one good pair of loppers is very needful.
A small pair of pruning loppers like this to do the small work
are very handy.
This particular pair is a scissor type.
You can see that one blade kind of compasses
this shimmering surface.
I like these especially because they tend to cut easily
like a pair of scissors do.
Another common pair is like this is referred to as anvil.
This has a flat surface here and a sharp blade
on the top surface.
As you squeeze together, as long as you keep the blade
very, very sharp, it'll easily cut through many small twigs.
The disadvantage of this type of pair of pruners
is that if they get a little bit dull,
they tend to squash and crush the branch on the end
making it not heal quite as easily.
A good little file is always helpful with these types
of pruning tools.
A little bit of touch up with a file
will make them last for many years keeping them sharp,
and so you make good clean cuts.
So one pair of loppers, a big pair, a small pair
are standard equipment.
And then you need a saw for the big jobs.
Saws come in all shapes and sizes.
This is a standard keyhole saw.
It's really referred to as a carpenter saw.
The disadvantage in using a carpenter type saw
is they're designed to cut when you push.
And a lot of times if you're working in carpentry,
you're down here on a pair of sawhorses
working this way so the pushing action works very well.
When you're pruning trees, though it's very different.
Often you're working above your head or shoulder height.
This is a pruning saw.
This is a folding pruning saw.
A very coarse teeth.
These are designed to cut when you pull,
not cut when you push.
So you can be working over your head
using the weight of your body to pull down,
and it's a lot easier to do the work by pulling down.
You'll notice this has a curved blade on it.
When you're dealing with limbs, that curved blade
is quite an advantage, whereas the blade on a carpenter saw
is straight.
A few other variations on the pruning saws.
This is a real nice one for even heavier limbs.
Again, the curved shape, very coarse teeth
cut when you pull it and they work very effectively.
Just mention that this particular folding pruning saw,
I've had this one for 35 years.
Prunes very easily or saws very easily.
If you keep them sharp, they'll last a long time.
They're fairly inexpensive.
Recently bought a new one, and you'll spend $20 to $25
on a good one.
The thing that I like about these folding types is you
can fold them like this, and when
you're working in the orchard, you
can tuck those in a back pocket and continue to work
with a good pair of loppers.
One more type of saw that's very commonly
available, I kind of call this my Christmas tree saw.
These are nice for cutting small diameter trees and things.
They cut when you both push and pull.
A standard bullseye type that's a commonly available
in many lawn and garden centers.
Worked very well for cutting much larger limbs.
So there you have it, loppers, small shears, saws.
A few other tools that are especially
helpful for the long jobs are these pruning poles.
Pruning poles come in a lot of shapes and sizes.
The type that I do not recommend are
those that have a lever and a rope,
and the ropes tend to come down the handle
and are quite inconvenient and it's often
easy to get tangled up in the ropes.
This particular type has the standard pruning
jaws here, a little lever mechanism on the top.
You can see that this has an adjustment where
you can adjust the angle of the head
with this little tightening button.
This one has a nylon ribbon that goes down
on the inside of the handle.
So to actuate the pruning head, just simply pull
the handle in this manner.
Very easy to work using your strength down
on the end of the handle and being able to reach out
to far distances.
This one when you really reach long distance,
you can also grab this little button on the end,
and the ribbon extends the entire length of the handle.
This is probably one of my favorite pruning tools.
If I were recommending three things,
I'd recommend getting one of these,
a pruning pole of this design, a pair of loppers such as these
with the rubber bumper, and then a small pair of hand shears
that work very well for the small group.
Before we close, this is another type of pruning pole
that if you have very large trees.
They're a little bit more expensive.
You'll pay about $90 for a pair for this type of pruning poll.
But as you can see, they have a very long reach
and can make it possible to reach quite tall trees.
We have a ladder.
Ladders are important when you're
dealing with bigger trees.
This is a standard homeowner type ladder.
If you really get into it where you have a lot of pruning
to do, one type of ladder that's commonly
available in commercial orchard production
is a ladder that has the standard legs on this side,
but the back of it instead of having two legs
has just a long metal pole that's easily extended out.
And by having three points of contact on the ground
is a lot more stable than a homeowner type ladder
as you can see here that has four points of contact.
A few more tools that are useful when
you have medium-sized trees.
This implement with the bent forks on the end,
makes it very handy to reach back
underneath trees to pull the limbs out
to clean up the pruning.
And when your trees are quite tall,
you can get this type of an implement
with an adjustable handle.
This is a standard painter's handle.
And if your fruit is very high in the tree,
there's this little basket on the end with little teeth
and a little piece of foam rubber
where you can hook on the edge of the apple gently tugging.
It it'll drop down into the basket.
But you can reach quite high distances up
into a tree to be able to retrieve the fruit in the fall.
So there's an example of some useful tools around the yard.
It's not necessary to spend a lot of money.
But when you buy tools, it's good to spend
a reasonable amount of money for good quality metals,
good quality handles.
And by taking care of them and not letting them get wet
and leaving them out in the yard, by taking care of them,
they'll last for a lot of years and provide
a lot of good service.
Thank you for joining us for this segment of pruning tools
with Utah State University Extension Service.
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