Can I head back a 2-year old cherry tree to 50 cm?

[benthegirl]

When you say it’s 2 years old - you mean it’s been in the ground at your house last summer +this summer?

@Oliver

about 50 cm above the ground

I’d actually worry that cutting it back that hard would kill the tree. It’s not a whip. I’m assuming there are no branches below that height? So you’d be cutting off all the foliage? If you look on the trunk below 50cm are there buds?

Sometimes these young trees just don’t have enough energy to get going in Spring if they don’t store enough now. And if the tree is putting all it’s umph into making brand new branches right now there might be trouble. Also, where are you? do you have a very long season? If I pruned back now I’d only have another 1 or 1.5 months of good growing time.

I’d be more inclined to try staking it. Then, prune to encourage new branches in good directions.

I know this is a peach tree, but here is an example of an unbalanced tree that @Olpea, who is very experienced, pruned:

Is this peach tree shape viable for the long term?

@Asvmac in case you or anyone else is interested, here is some funky training I’ve done to a reasonably young peach tree. Here’s a before and after pruning pic I took today of this tree. The second photo is much later in the evening and the sun was going down, so the quality is poor. But the story behind this tree is that there were minimal scaffolds to select at the height I wanted. There was only one scaffold going one direction, and everything was dead above it. I chose that scaffold wi…