Effects of Pre-Harvest Pruning on Leucospermum 'High Gold '

Pre-harvest pruning of Leucospermum 'High Gold' cultivar is a regular practice with several objectives, namely of reducing the incidence of diseases during the harvest season, to remove branches or stems that have not developed flowering buds and that will ultimately induce early sprouting during the harvest season, and to induce longer stem yields. In this study two different strategies were taken: a) at the end of the 2007/2008 growing season new stems that sprouted earlier due to pre-harvest pruning were labeled and their yielding pattern was determined and compared with others in the same plants (Experiment 1); b) in November of 2008 (Experiment 2a) and 2009 (Experiment 2b) pre-harvest pruning was conducted on whole plants and compared with plants that did not have a pre-harvest prune. The effects of pre-harvest pruning are limited. Although pre-harvest pruning assists in keeping a good canopy structure and induces early sprouting, there are no significant differences in either the harvest season, the number of stems in the following growing season, or on disease incidence and yield.