Need advice for pruning indoor Avocado saplings

Question

I have four Avocado "trees", which are now aproximately 1 - 1,5 years old. I did not prune them until now, because I did not know any better. I have read, that saplings should be reduced by half in height when they reach 20 - 30 cm. Three of mine are already 50 - 60 cm in height. Now the question is: where do I prune them? Some more information: plant #1 has a branch near the top of the plant, no other plant has. Plant #1 is also the prettiest of the four, with dark green leaves and also many of them, the pictures do it no justice due to the bad lighting. Plant #2 did not grow any new leaves at the top recently, however all of the leaves are located in the top third of the plant. Plant #3 is rather bushy and is currently developing new leafs at the top. Plant #4 still is very small (only 35cm), it did not grow for a long time, however it is now developing leafs again. All of them will be repotted soon, #2 and #3 are still in their starter "pots". I really appreciate your help and thanks a lot in advance! BR

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Answer 1

So I pruned my avocados how I though it would work, back when I made this post (3 months ago). As I did not get any answers, maybe this update will help some of you. I simply cut 10cm off of plant 1 to 3 and left plant 4 alone, it was too small, I also repotted them to significantly larger pots, the are rooting quite quickly. All of the trees made a new leader, tree 1 even made three equal branches, however, it was the only tree that did not handle the sun well and right now around half of the leaves are burnt and will fall off soon. Tree 2 and 3 each grew an additional branch next to the leader, however they remained small. In general, each branch grew at least 15cm in 3 months. I also did experiments with seedlings, see tree 5 and 6. Tree 5 was around 30cm without any real leaves, I halved it and it grew a new leader. Tree 6 was very little, its tip dried up. However it then grew even two leaders! They seem to be very resiliant. In general I cannot say if it is worth it, but they seem to handle it well. Tree 5 might be a little smaller now with the leaves developed more, but I cannot see a significant difference for now.

One more info: I live in central europe and the plants are indoors at a west facing window, they do not get too much light, maybe 3-5 hours evening light a day. The plants are all from Hass seeds.

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