Questions not deserving of a whole thread

Dutch cuts, as I have learned, leave a angled stub of 1 - 2". Longest lip on the bottom. A latent bud then grows from that stub. In this case you do not want to leave the stub as you are leaving the problem you are trying to over come. If you cut back to the collar ( the raised ring where the limb originates from the trunk) there will be no stub. You are hoping the new bud will originate from a slightly new location on the trunk.

1 Like

I think a dutch cut would be fine- a shoot should form at the base and be much more horizontal. For me, upper tiers are always in rotation once a tree is fully bearing. I have backups ready to go by always leaving several extra of weaker branches to fill in when I remove one. Trees I manage usually are only 2-tier to keep the crop at about 12 feet and have first tier above the browse line of deer.

1 Like

Thanks Alan. Should I do the dutch cut while dormant or in summer? I’d like to keep the upper tier calm so maybe in summer.

If you have a nice spot for your VdB, by all means bring it inside. Warm it up and give it lots of light or else it will get leggy on you.

1 Like

No, do a dormant prune to assure a bud sprouts. It won’t stimulate the top, especially if you are cutting into older than one year wood.

2 Likes

CAN PEACH TREE HEAL 3-4 INCH PRUNING CUT? A friend has a Reliance peach tree of about three to four inch diameter at three feet above ground, growing with central leader. Current branching is too high for easy conversion to vase/open center. Conversion requires sawing off 3 to 4 in. diameter leader at about three feet above ground and generating new scaffold.

Will a three to four inch wound likely heal on a young Reliance peach? I have very little experience with peaches.

@alan

Will this work for plums (and stone fruit in general) as well?

Mike

Sure can’t count on it for peaches, but I’ve not used it on any stonefruit.

I think I top worked this peach in 2015 , any way here it is with a new variety and the stumps where I removed the old peach variety

8 Likes

Hamebone
I don’t grow a lot of peach trees , but here is my opinion about cutting 3-4 inch branches.;
Likely they will not properly heal. And may eventually be the doom of the tree.

However , I consider peach trees to have a short productive life anyway .
You may get several good years of production yet, before the un healed cut
Becomes “the” problem. and this may coincide with the productive life
( but some what shortened). Of the tree.

Mostly I have been glad I have made bigger cuts,to get a tree in the shape I wanted it to be. Some don’t heal , and rot.
Of course it’s best to have that long term " vision" from day one , to avoid making those large cuts latter on.

4 Likes

@Hillbillyhort Thanks Hill. Yeah I’m thinking the time to make it vase shape is long gone. It’s not my tree, belongs to a friend who neglected it. Neglecting fruit trees seems to be the National Pasttime.

2 Likes

I’m not an expert, and I definitely can’t tell you if it will die ANYWAY, BUT I do know: A tree can heal over a 3 to 4 inch cut IF you graft onto it. It’ll heal over in a year if you graft three shoots onto the top, two if you just put on on each side. You can always graft itself onto itself, let the branch heal, and then stub off the much smaller grafts.

3 Likes

@MisterGuy How tricky is peach grafting? I’ll look into this, thanks.

Officially peaches are tricky. I had extraordinarily good luck last year with the methods described in the thread here:
Basic Tips For New Grafters #2: Different Grafts (Discussion Needed) - #66 by MisterGuy

That was maybe more like a two inch maybe two and a half inch trunk.

1 Like

So it looks like I have crown gall on 3 apple trees I grafted onto G969 last year and grew in pots. I expect it must have been there when I got them, since there were some small bumps on the rootstock when I received it and they grew in Promix BX which seems like an unlikely source of crown gall.

Anyway, after getting over the disappointment with my 3 new trees, I realize I need to toss them out. But I’m wondering if I can cut off the tops for scion wood. Would there be the chance of the gall bacteria in the tops or should they be okay. Since I don’t have either scions on hand and I need to make some new trees, I was hoping they might be clean, but don’t want to waste my time.

Thoughts?

Scionwood should be ok, especially if taken high on the tree.
Above the rain splash zone ,
You could wipe with a 10% bleach solution before taking cuttings, as an added precaution

2 Likes

Thanks. I’m glad to hear the trees aren’t a total loss.

I better go cut those scions right now since it is 70+ outside today and my peach buds have gone silvery already.

Where did you get the 969 from? Have you told the Nursery? They might not make it right, but perhaps they should be informed so this problem can be brought to their attention and hopefully fixed.

Here is a pic of a 4+" scaffold removal on a peach. The tree is 14 years old. I probably removed the scaffold 9 years ago, and it still hasn’t completely healed.

I cut it flush to the trunk (probably leaving the collar). And I painted the naked wound a couple times with copper to preserve the wood so it would have time to callus.

As it turns out, the tree is getting close to the end of it’s productive life, so it was probably a waste of time to paint copper anyway.

Here, peach trees need not be managed for longevity. They are easy to propagate, quick to come into production, and have a short productive life anyway. One could think of them as really really long lived annuals. :man_shrugging::wink:

4 Likes

I called the nursery once and left a message describing the issue and hoping to talk to someone about what to do since I had already planted one tree. I was still open to the idea that maybe it was something like you see on M111 with the pre-root growths and wanted to know if there was anything in the G969 growth habit that might indicate it.

When I didn’t hear back I called again today and connected with someone. They seemed busy and not very interested and said that I could take my chances that the one I planted would be okay or remove it. Since it is close to 2 healthy trees I’ll be removing it and the dirt around it later today and the other 2 trees still in their pots I’ll just cut the tops off for scion and toss the rest. I had explained they were grown in Promix BX which I didn’t think was likely to carry the crown gall, but they just said they couldn’t tell me where it might have come from but could have been in the potting mix. Since they don’t currently list G969 and I can’t say for sure they were infected when I go them, I won’t mention them by name. But based on the response I won’t be using them again. Just wish I’d gone with the G890 instead…