I imagine that a branch growing downward is not going to be very stable. This is an arctic rose nectarine if memory serves me well. Thoughts? Keeping it for the moment as it looks to be bearing.
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sexy…
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I doubt any fruit will develop on it at such a young age, but I don’t understand your question about the crotch angle. The branch will develop from the vigorous shoot attached to the trunk, the flower is on last years shoot but I don’t even see the signs of any vital leaf buds to support it or the fruit.
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Thanks for the reply Alan!
My question was whether or not a downward facing branch or shoot is viable or whether it will be unable to support weight in the future.
I’m new to this and realize that I presented this question in an uncouth manner. But I read that horizontal branching is desired and many ppl weigh their branches down or tie them to achieve that. Should I just snip this branch/shoot?
There are no hard rules and species and varieties vary, as well as techniques. I’ve seen pruning guides about apples suggesting that training branches below horizontal is a disaster and yet the French Axe is a training technique widely used that pulls bearing shoots below horizontal, but they tend to be supported on a trellis.
However, with peach trees the goal is to establish usually 3 scaffold branches that become your source for a yearly supply of nice upright shoots, moderately vigorous, to hold your crop. All fruit comes from last years growth (all leaves too, actually). I’m sure you can find a guide on how to train peach trees to form a goblet if branching starts low or a shallow bowl if it starts high to allow for squirrel and coon baffles or to keep above deer.
Branches need to be at least at an angle well above horizontal. If branches start low the angle will be much less than when you train branches from a long trunk. The best way to get a spreading tree is to tie branches close to horizontal, generally in the 60 to 70 degree range.
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I should have mentioned that the weight of fruit tends to lower branches over time, so you don’t necessarily want to start with the perfect angle, especially with apples. I’ve seen huge scaffold branches on very old apple trees gradually get lower over the years from the weight of fruit. Peach wood tends to be more brittle and is more likely to break than bend when overloaded.
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Thanks for all the info!
From a quick look online it appears that bending apple branches below horizontal slows vegetative growth and encourages the flower buds to be more fruitful. Apparently this is especially helpful with heavy-cropping varieties (Goldrush was used as an example) by reducing the tendency towards alternate bearing (due to stress on the tree due to high use of hormones and carbohydrates).
The two apples that I have on Geneva-935 came as bare-root with plenty of nice horizontal scaffolding, and it seems to be only a matter of picking which ones to keep.
I definitely need to do some more research on peach/nectarine trees!
That’s what she said.
I had never heard of bending branches reducing biennial bearing, but, now that you bring that literature to my attention, I remember that years ago I purposely trained a Fuji apple on my property to see if it would encourage annual production and it clearly did. After cutting the tree down I promptly forgot what I had learned. Or maybe it wasn’t so prompt.
My joke is that I’ve forgotten more about fruit trees than most arborists will ever know… I’ve also forgotten more than I know.
It’s not entirely a joke, I’m afraid.
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