This is the first year my Redhaven and Giant HalBerta peaches (planted fall 2015) will bear fruit (Yay! Super excited! 
) The late freezes we had reduced fruit set quite a bit, so I haven’t had to thin them much. As I go back through them to check how well (or poorly) I thinned, would it make sense to prune off all one year wood that is not bearing fruit? Will pruning at this time negatively affect overall tree growth? They are not overly large for their age.
Thank you for any advice you can share.
I prune in the fall (all the big stuff growing straight up) then come back after fruit set in the spring and prune them some more.
If it has been a rough spring, I prune out pretty much all the unproductive foliage (shoots which don’t have any fruit) but will leave a few stub cuts on older trees which are more prone to blind wood. So yes, I would prune out most of the unproductive wood.
Yesterday a local news station stopped by and you can see us pruning during the interview. It’s not quite as bad at the orchard as the news clips made me sound, but we did lose some of the crop.
http://www.kctv5.com/clip/14350287/missouri-farmers-could-see-peach-shortage-this-summer
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Mark,
Nice to actually hear you speak. Your should do more pruning videos or any video about peaches. In this video, you moved so fast, I could not see what you pruned off but I assume the unproductive limbs. How many dead trees like that you have had this year? Sad to see such a nice looking tree dead.
BTW, the reporter wearing suit and tie in the middle of a peach farm seemed out of place. At least he took off his jacket 
Tippy,
We lost a 3 big trees and about that many new trees. They just fail to leaf out, or just start to try to push a little leaf tissue and then die. We also had some winter kill on some branches. It probably makes the trees more winter tender because we do a lot of pruning in the fall. This is the first year I’ve lost any big trees from winter kill.
Sometimes young trees will get hit really hard by the cold and take a long time to start to push any growth, and even then they are really slow getting started.
Lol, it’s been pretty warm here lately. The reporter actually had to sit in his air conditioned van for about a 1/2 hour to dry the sweat off of him before he could do the on camera in front of the dead tree.
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Dan,
I’ve heard of girdling fruit for size, but haven’t ever done it. The biggest challenge to growing really big peaches is keeping them on the tree. They get so big any wind will what to knock them off. Apples stay on the tree really good when they are big, peaches not as much.
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Mark,
My Autumn Star is growing a bit out of control in height. I have not done much re. pruning to reduce height.
I’d like to prune after harvest this year. AS harvest time for me is mid Sept. If I prune by then, would it be too close to winter? Our cold weather could start as early as Nov but in general it’s cold in Dec.
Tippy,
I can’t remember how cold it gets in MA where you’re at, but if I just had backyard trees, I’d probably do most of my major pruning in the spring just after the threat of frost was past. That way there is no risk of making the tree or fruit buds more sensitive to cold. The other advantage would be if there are spring frosts, then you could have more wood to choose from if some of the shoots were blank. You could prune out the blank shoots like we are doing now.
We do a lot of pruning in the fall, but still leave a fair amount of wood on the trees in case there is a damaging spring, we can cut out the extra unproductive wood. This is the third year we’ve had to do that for a lot of trees. We can leave extra wood, then cut out all the wood which doesn’t have peaches, and in that way sort of “make” a crop.
The only reason I start pruning wood in the fall, is that there is too much pruning to do, if I leave all the pruning to be done after fruit set. But ideally, it’s best to minimize damage and ensure maximum fruit set by pruning after you know the fruit has set. Additionally, the tree has more of a chance to heal from pruning cuts by pruning at the beginning of the season vs. the end.
The only reason we do it backwards is strictly because of the labor thing.
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Thank you very much, Mark. Will do.
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@Olpea,
Thanks so much for your reply. I will go back and prune out some of the unproductive wood.
Thanks for linking the video! Your trees are gorgeous! It’s hard to imagine mine attaining that size or stature. There is so much working against them here, mainly relentless wind and poor soils. I planted mine in “mounds” too, based on your advice on the GardenWeb back in 2015. I can see I should have gone much much bigger with the mounds. I did it all by hand and wheelbarrow, my son helped some too, but we didn’t get them much over a foot high to start with and there is settling, etc.
Anyway, I bent and tied down branches a couple days ago, so I want to be careful not to leave the interior exposed to sunburn from the combination of pruning and the bending. I will probably paint some of those interior branches, just in case.
While I was thinning, I found a few small misshapen peaches that looked like this:
Is this insect damage? The May beetles and Chaffer beetles have been out in full force, and I have seen a few peaches with the bottoms chewed on. I am not seeing a lot of the misshapen fruits though.
Thanks!
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I’ve not seen any damage from May/June bugs on peach. They generally don’t mess with them. Rose Chafers will attack peach some, but they generally considered a minor pest of peaches.
If you’re not seeing a lot of misshapen fruits, it doesn’t sound like stink bugs are hitting your fruits too hard. I’m not sure about the misshapen fruits in your pic. I get a few peaches which shrivel and fall off, which I think is normal. From my experience stink bug/plant bug damage won’t cause fruits to shrivel like that. Stink/plant bugs damage the fruit, but the fruit continues to develop.
If you aren’t spraying anything, make sure you are on the lookout for any flagging from OFM. They can decimate your fruits in a hurry. PC can also do a lot of damage quickly.
Re: Sunburn
I’ve never had sunburn problems here, when I’m pruning at this time. Sunburn can be an issue if all the foliage is removed out of the center on a larger tree when the sun is high and temps are 95+. Of course it doesn’t hurt to paint, but we don’t do it here.
@Olpea, thanks so much for your response. I have seen some stink bugs around already, wondered if they’d be bothering the peaches. I guess I won’t worry about those misshapen fruits, especially if I don’t keep finding more.
I spray Cu fall and spring for peach leaf curl. I didn’t know what pests would be problematic here, or diseases other than leaf curl, for that matter. To keep it simple for me, I went with Bonide Fruit Tree Spray with malathion. I sprayed at petal fall, and label says I can spray twice more before harvest (but cannot apply within 21 days of harvest). I will have to see if this is enough protection or if I need to look at different products for control next year.
Can you tell me when your Redhaven ripen? I didn’t have any success finding the number of days from flowering to harvest. I suppose it’s out there, I must not be using the correct search terms.
I don’t know what the flagging from OFM looks like, so I will look that up. I’ve been watching for signs of PC or any other insect damage, none so far.
Is there a post here where you mention what spray program you use? Being a commercial orchard, your regime is probably beyond what I can do, but I was curious what your main disease and pest issues are and what you use for control.
I have read that many people paint trunks to prevent sunscald, but have wondered if it was necessary here. I haven’t gotten to that yet, and now I am thinking it might not be necessary after all, if it has never been a problem for you. We are probably on similar latitude, but I am west of you a ways in the Flint Hills region.
Thanks so much for your help & advice!
KSprairie,
Redhaven ripens anywhere from mid July to the first part of August. Since this was a pretty late spring this year, I expect it to ripen first part of August.
I spray for leaf curl in the fall (after most of the leaves have dropped). In terms of other fungicides or insecticides, I wait till after shuck split to start spraying. My first few sprays are generally with a neonic like Belay or Actara. This last spray I added permethrin with the Belay because I’ve noticed that, although the neonics do a very good job controlling PC, they haven’t been that strong on stink bug. The permethrin did a good job on the stink bug. Pyrethroids by themselves don’t do a good job for me on PC.
I try to front load my spray program. It seems like if you hit the insect pests hard early in the season, they aren’t too bad when it gets hot and dry.
Later in the season, I have used Assail and Delegate as an insecticide. They have a much shorter PHI (7 days for Assail, and 1 day for Delegate) so work better later in the season. Delegate is super expensive though.
We have to battle scab pretty hard here, so I add Captan to my early sprays as a fungicide. For later fungicide sprays I use Indar to control brown rot.
I think you told me the town you lived in once, but I’ve forgotten. If you live out by Manhattan, then you don’t get as much rain, as we do here in the extreme eastern part of the state. If that’s the case, you should have a lot less pest pressure, both insect and fungal pests, which probably means very little spraying.
@Olpea,
Thanks for the ripening time on the Redhaven. I don’t know how we will be able to wait that long though!!! All of the info you shared is very helpful! I am going to print and file it.
We are south of MHK about 60 miles, out “in the middle of nowhere” 
. Our yearly precipitation avg is around 33”. But, it’s variable as you know. Drought years will occur with regularity. We finally got rain last night, 7/10” thank goodness, but we sure need more.
Anyway, thanks so much for sharing your spray schedule. It gives me a great frame of reference for what’s necessary in high pressure areas, and maybe what I will need to do will be somewhat less stringent. Hopefully. At the rate I am going, I think it’s going to take me several years to identify what the main disease and pests pressures are at this location, and then how I can deal with them most economically. And then those things will probably change year to year, if it’s anything like gardening. 
Also- I apologize if I have asked you these same questions before!! I have tried to find some of my saved discussions on the old GardenWeb site, but somethings changed and I can’t access any of my old bookmarks over there.
I’d love to make it to your orchard sometime, although we rarely get over that way. Just in case… when do you expect your early varieties to be ready?
KSpraire,
Since spring started so late this year, we expect to start late. I expect the first peaches about the first or second week of July, then we’ll run till Oct.
That’s some nice country out where you’re at. Doesn’t sound like you are too far from Council Grove. It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten at the Hay’s House there. They used to serve fresh peach pie, you know 
Right you are. Council Grove is where we go to church and do our local shopping. One of my really good friends used to be the baker at the Hays House for years. Her pies are legendary. 
You probably ate a great piece of peach pie made by my friend Heather. .
Hey thanks for letting me know when your season starts! If we get the opportunity we will stop by and get some great peaches! If any of mine make it to harvest and are still edible, my boys are going to be clamoring for more. My oldest told me the other day there is no other fruit he looks forward to eating fresh off the tree as much as a peach. I hope I will be able to accommodate him.
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