I’m looking for suggestions on the state of my Saturn peach tree. Southern CA, zone 10a. I am following Tom Spellman’s method for 6 topped bare root stock trees planted in February. All DWN trees. This peach has only put out 1 new limb. The other 5 trees: apple, pluot, and plum, pushed out limbs all along their trunks and have already been thinned for initial scaffolding. What I want is for the peach to also put out limbs all along its trunk, but I don’t really know what to do at this juncture. Thanks in advance.
Wait to see if more buds will push. If not then you need to make a tree out of that one shoot. Wait until it has hardened off so it won’t break off when straightened up. Tie it to the current truck to get it going upright. Then next spring cut it back low to force the scaffold branches needed to make a tree. It might push some low branches this summer and make things easier as far as training.
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The tree has already decided- that will almost certainly become your new tree with no other help. I would just let it grow for a while an not risk snapping it at this time, which would likely kill the tree. When it is stronger you can tape it to the existing tree and everything will proceed as planned with a minor delay.
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I see that FN pretty much stated everything needed already. Should have read his full comment before jumping in.
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On another FB group I belong to a person shared this comment related to my tree and topping DWN fruit trees. Uncertain of validity:
“After some amount of research on peach trees I learned that unlike plums and similar stone fruit, peach trees do not develop what are called latent buds at prior bud points. If there were branches that were removed from a prior bud point and you too the tree, very good chance nothing will grow back. You’re lucky to have one branch coming out.”
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All true, peaches and nectarines have this issue. Smaller caliper trees that are younger are more likely to sprout low buds. Big caliper, older trees are at risk of doing what yours has done. I believe it’s trees carried over longer in the nursery that have an issue.
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Well not exactly true, smaller caliper peaches will branch out. I had this happen to me and I lost time, but I was able to develop a new tree. The one branch will be your central leader. In my opinion leave it alone, it will figure out it’s the central leader all by itself, top it again once it has some visible scaffolds form on their own. I no longer try to create scaffolds on peaches, I try to use exiting branches. They are usually higher up, but I have had no problems keeping them small.
The tree I did, the new central leader died from winter cold. So the next year it sprouted three new branches from the base. I just kept those as scaffolds. One of those scaffolds died later. But the tree is now 6 or 7 years old and produces about 80 nectarines each year. Nects and peaches are the same thing. So i developed sub scaffolds on the remaining two to fill he void. I grafted Red Haven on a sub scaffold pointing in the open area and will develop that into a new scaffold. here it is today. The branch coming toward the camera and going to the right is Red Haven graft, which will become the 3rd scaffold. It is a Spice Zee nectaplum.
I added more grafts too
Yeah I just want more cultivars and no room, so grafting them on. The Spice Zee tasted really bland the first two years. I almost pulled the whole tree. The third year they were the best stone fruit in the yard. Fantastic! Sometimes trees need time,
The fruit is huge and fantastic tasting. A low acid white nectarine with some plum genes.
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This peach was purchased in late Feb when nursery was in the process of canning their bare root stock. We were getting out of holding pattern on our landscaping and did not know when ground would be ready for trees.
Peaches are various in their ability to generate new wood from old wood locations. The longest lived and longest useful varieties tend to generate new growth from old wood in a trees interior which helps keep the tree “young” and also from forming wasted space in the center of trees. Madison and Redhaven are varieties prone to generating new wood. A lot of the older varieties are, as trees were “built to last” in the old days. Now commercial fruit growing is a tree throw away economy.
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2 months later, and I still only have the single branch on peach tree. I’ve starting pulling it up to become the central branch. This may just work!
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I did as you suggested, with much reservation, and I’m very happy with the what appears to be the new central leader with lots of side growth. So a super thank you for the good advice. See picture below.
Fantastic. Glad it’s looking good.
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Alan, Thank you too for weighing on this tree. Very helpful and I’m learning a lot from this new peach tree.
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Looks like you are off to the races. You might just make sure you don’t let the thing get too tall. That’s sort of a concern when one if forced to accept the growth so high.
At the same time, looks like the rootstock is something different than peach roots. I see a bulb. I suspect the tree is on some plum/hybrid root. This can add some challenges, depending on ones goals.
I pruned tree 18” above graft, so I am still OK with height. This is DWN tree, root stock is citation. I wanted all my stone/pome trees to have open center, but this one will have central leader. The world will still turn… I hope.
I don’t recommend pruning peach whips before first growth- just so you can see what’s alive. I don’t think it wastes energy because first growth is from stored energy close to growth and roots are just starting to really click into growing and moving nitrogen and water. In recently transplanted trees there is a bit of a lag before roots start distributing N compared to established trees.
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Right, and you still can, scaffolds will just be higher. All but one of mine have higher scaffolds. Trees are still kept at 7 feet, and I get around 100 fruits a tree. Well more like 300, I just leave about 80 usually. The new central leader should throw out all kinds of potential scaffolds.
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One thing you could do is (not this time of year) is try to graft a different variety to make up the other scaffolds…
In general, when I’ve had trees like that, I’ve found the side with no shoots to have a dead cambium layer - effectively making a pretty week tree.
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