The Citizen Pruner Program is designed to train citizen volunteers who work with their city to help prune trees for suckers, sprouts, and deadwood. Suckers and sprouts on city trees can block sight lines creating dangerous intersections. Citizen Pruners assist arborists and urban foresters to clear the small and easily accessible issues so city arborists can focus on tree removals and managing larger tree pruning needs. Citizen Pruners are trained in tree identification and basic pruning techniques. All volunteers receive training from the University of Minnesota, Department of Forest Resources in proper and safe pruning methods.
If you are interested in bringing the Citizen Pruner Program to your community, please have your local government unit fill out and return the following application to be reviewed by program coordinators.
2017 Participating Communities
Rochester Citizen Pruner Training
The City of Rochester will be hosting a Citizen Pruner Training on May 14th and 15th, 2021. This will be a hybrid training with Day 1 being a Zoom presentation and Day 2 being socially distanced field training at Silver Lake Park (split into two times).
Check out Rochester's page for more details and to register!
Citizen Pruner Field Form
Looking for the Citizen Pruner Field Form? A new form has been created based on changes in the reporting system. As usual, you can log the information when you are out in the field and then have one individual from a pruning group enter the data online. This data will be applied to all participants in your Citizen Pruner group. You can access the new Citizen Pruner Field Form (PDF).
Member Card Replacement Request
Have you recently lost your Citizen Pruner Member Card or simply need a new one to regular wear and tear? If so, please fill out Citizen Pruner Member Card Replacement Form to request a new one to be mailed to you.
Temporary Inactive Application
If you are seeking Temporary Inactive status as a TCA due to constraints in your life at this time, please fill out and return the following application for review by program coordinators.