Good evening, Steemians!

I wanted to mention why it's a very good idea to nip emerging leaves from the main stem or trunk of a fruit tree sapling. The basic idea is that you want to encourage horizontal growth so that your trees aren't 40 feet tall, and you can't reach the fruit.

This is a mango sapling of which I pinched the top emerging leaves that were coming out (new growth). Instead of just sending a few leaves out, I've made the mango send off young stems (green branch growth) to the sides.

You're seeing the new growth after I've pinched leaves and forced the sapling to begin growing horizontally. You want to do this early on with fruit trees. My rule of thumb is that I don't let my fruit trees get above waist high before I begin pinching the main trunk of the sapling. The earlier on that you make your trees "fork", the easier it will be to control the height of your trees, making for much easier harvests.

Hope you found this informational, Steemians! Thanks for stopping by!