Does pruning help a tree get through a drought?

What pruning can do

Dead wood is the useful cut. Texas A&M Forest Service notes that wood borers, root rots and canker diseases are especially common after drought, and bark beetles are a concern for pines in the year or so after a dry spell. Taking out dead limbs removes both the hazard and a likely entry point. See dead wooding.

Light thinning of a very long, heavy limb can lower the load the tree must support. The work is small and measured.

What pruning cannot do

A tree gets through drought on water in the root zone, not on a smaller crown. Cutting off healthy leaves removes the part that makes the tree's food, and a big cut also opens the tree to sun scorch and sprouts. Watering is the owner's job; our guide for the high desert is watering mature trees.

Timing is the trap. Drought damage can show up a year or two later, so a tree that looks fine now may still be declining.

It is a local problem

NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normals give Carson City 9.34 inches of precipitation a year and Reno-Tahoe International Airport 7.35. Valley trees run on irrigation. A broken sprinkler zone or a removed lawn can start the decline. The signs, and the checks an arborist makes, are on drought stress and dieback.

When it is past pruning

If the crown is mostly dead, twigs show no green when scratched, or decay reaches the trunk, pruning will not save the tree. A certified arborist can tell at the free estimate whether to cut dead wood and wait, or to plan removal. We do not spray or treat trees. Call 775.232.8243.