I did massive pruning a year or two ago, and no new shoots ever since, only from the bottom. I pulled these, but they grew back.
The original tips were too high to be reached without a ladder. I suppose it may have been possible to train them down using rope and bricks, If it didn’t break. But the profile would’ve been quite wide.
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It’s quite possible that the top variety died and the root stock is putting out growth.
Check for living tissue by scratching a little,starting at the top and then going down.
I’m not sure what happened to them.Was it super cold there or disease,like Peach Leaf Curl?bb
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No, they were just pruned back to far.
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Should I keep pulling off the base sprouts?
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They aren’t stopping the top from sprouting so you might want to consider grafting. If you pruned away all the existing vegetative buds you killed the trees, otherwise it was weather related.
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Thanks Alan. I didn’t realize pruning all the vegetative buds off would kill it. That’s what happen then. So the sprouts are rootstalk, or resprouting ( not sure if they were grafted)?
What kind of graft would you recommend?
New vigorous trees are very cheap here. I could cut it down and plant again.
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I recommend you do what you please- I’d probably just replace the trees also- but then I have hundreds to choose from right on my property.
However, when I don’t like a peach variety that I’ve been growing for 3 years I sometimes graft it over to something else. With apples and pears, it’s a given because I don’t have to even think about timing, hardly and most grafts take. I only do simple splice grafts and at least half of my peach grafts seem to fail.
Second photo is red leaf, rootstock is regrowing. Starks used a lot of that on their grafted trees. Not a bad rootstock, makes it easy to tell suckers and sprouts that are not scion. Yes, unfortunately both those trees are toast. Start over.
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Citation has the red leaves (also?).
Thanks so much guys. Just to clarify, the grafting has to occur on the small shoots coming out of the ground - the actual thick trunk is all useless now?
As a side, my remaining Fantasia nectarine survived, but no blossoms this year and all new leaves torched by aphids. I’ve gotten no fruit and lots of problems from all these trees over the last few years. Seems impossible without heavy pesticide spraying. The initial 2 years with my peach tree were awesome.
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I haven’t seen them on a Nectarine like that.They go after my Plums and leave the other alone.
Soap and oil at different times may help.bb
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Rootstock, as the others said. Keep one strong rootstock shoot and graft the desired variety to it, or yank the whole thing out and start over.
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