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Jun 23, When pruning young trees, unwanted lower limbs that have potential to become prominent components of the developing canopy should of course be removed. However, for some trees, some of the smaller twiggy ‘stubble’ that will not interfere with the development of the canopy can remain to promote caliper growth (for a heftier trunk while the tree is young).Estimated Reading Time: 3 mins. Cutting off the lower branches of young trees results in the trees not taking as much carbon dioxide to feed itself.

In other words, the fewer needles, the less food it takes in. Leaving the lower branches on the trees makes sense when it comes the tree's health and development. Jan 20, Cutting off lower limbs is bad for the tree, but as Stumpy mentioned, if done conservatively, will only shave 50 or years off the trees life expectancy. You'll be long gone by then. Removing lower limbs has a compounding effect on the tree.