I thinned this peach several times, but evidently not enough. When I went over to mow the property, I found that the peach had split down the middle.
Now, the question of what to do, both long term and short term.
The tree is Gloria, with the fruit due to ripen in late August, about 4 weeks from now. One half is leaning on the ground and the other half is leaning on the fence.
I see two options:
1.) Try to ripen things where they are leaning
2.) Sink a couple posts into the ground and tie each half up in multiple spots
2a.) Just support each half, or support them in such a way that I can tape the trunk back together again? Duct tape?
Long term, do I need to cut the tree off below the crack, or would part of it be OK tied up to a post indefinitely? I do have a few other varieties grafted on that I’d prefer to not lose. If I do need to cut it lower, I’d like to do it next spring, after taking the scionwood over the winter and bark grafting it on the new trunk.
Full disclosure: I have no expertise regarding this scenario, but I would support both side with stakes and rejoin the split trunk with a whole bunch of decent sized zip ties and make them tight. if it works you’ll have to remove the zip ties later of course. (2a)
Thanks for showing this. Heartbreaking to see. I have limited experience here as well, but my 2 cents if you want to read…
I’ve only had minor rips on much smaller branches and even on those, I found 2a is difficult to do because it’s hard to fight gravity and attempting a fix will risk further damage. Given the stronger wood of the tree tore apart, there’s no way a weaker duct tape will hold it back together. The strongest bond I can think of without girdling is to bind both sides back together with a row of wood screws. But I’d remove a lot of weight on both sides before attempting any repair, as the excess weight proportionally adds more risk of further damage. If it becomes unstable and falls again, you could lose the whole side of limb and the opportunity to gather scions.
#2 without moving the split branches too much is probably the safest bet if you want to get scions later. Given cambium is not severed, I believe it will continue to grow, I have seen such in trees in similar situations.
If it was my tree, after taking scions, I would save the 3 lower scaffolds, chop off perhaps 6 inches above the split, then try to bind together the 6 inches above the split with some screws. You can even put a metal hose clamp at the end of the split and it’s okay if it’s only girdling locally at the end of the split.
Wow!
In my climate I’d remove the split leader, 1st by a rough cut above the split and then by a careful cut below the split and paint the wound with tree seal. I’d also shorten the lengths of the remaining scaffolds by 1/2 – ignoring any fruit loss, and painting those cuts with tree seal. Finally I’d set my sights on the next two years of growing out new scaffolding to balance the old.
Harvest all the peaches from both splits and remove the broken branches.
Grab a recipe for pickled peaches or pickled Green Mango or Green Mango chutney.
Don’t delay the sooner you do the tree will realize it had some major damage and start sending out new growth to compensate. You need that growth to have as much time to harden off as possible. Also without climate change induced fluctuations. You can almost count on a mild cycle if you winter prune that the tree will come out of dormancy for.
Because the bark looks intact, I’d remove most of the peaches and tape and splint it together using vinyl electric tape, all supported by a piece of electric conduit pounded into the ground. At worst, the larger side will become the entire tree but there’s a good chance both sides will heal if enough bark is intact.
The tree is a solid example of the benefit of pruning by ratios. It didn’t split just because it was overloaded- that can cause branches to break, but usually not splitting. You essentially created a co-dominant structure that begs to split under stress.
Bob,
That’s painful to see. I had the experience of large limbs broken twice, unfortunately.
If you want to ripen the peaches, you could just let the broken limbs be. Somehow, even with partial limbs intact, the fruit will ripen. No need to harvest the peaches now.
Once I tried to support the broken limb, I somehow caused more damage and the connection with the main trunk broke. Fruit on the completely broken off limb could no longer ripen and they were too many weeks from ripen.
However, If you want to save the tree, do what @alan suggested. With Split in the middle like that, I would try to safe the tree and sacrifice the fruit.
Incidentally, an old time peach training technique was to train the tree into a 3 branch goblet shape and once fruit begins to get heavy you pull all three branches together with a single piece of sturdy rope. You know, not tightly together, but just enough tension that the branches are supporting each other.
I can’t go there because I must train peach trees to accommodate baffles so the goblet would have to be over 15’ tall. One advantage to sustaining a central leader is that you can tie branches to it when they start bending to the ground, but it is tough to sustain a central leader in a peach tree, so I mostly depend on creating stout branches, no matter how much cutting back is required. In my own orchard I end up using too many crutches in spite of my efforts but I can’t do that in the orchards I manage because then I have to baffle the crutches. Better to sacrifice some of the branch. Any loaded peach tree has more fruit than one family can usually use anyway.
Another method I sometimes use is to tape a stout and straight sapling to the trunk of a peach tree that is about 12’ tall and use string and it to support sagging branches. I forgot about that because I haven’t used it lately, but it works well. Easier just to expand the baffle than having to make one for each crutched scaffold.
I’d let the peaches ripen. Harvest budwood next winter. And next spring cut off below the damage. My main concern today would be avoiding further damage. Maybe a bit of support to get everything off the ground and get light to everything to ripen the crop.
No way would I sacrifice the crop to try to repair the tree now. If you keep the damaged area, it will never be a strong tree. They’re easy to regrow. You can have a new strong tree and fruit by 2025. In fact with the other branches in place you can have fruit in 2024. Maybe tie those other branches up to form a new canopy.
I can’t really believe so much advice favoring repairing that split. The split is toast. Get rid of it and grow something new and stronger.
I don’t agree with that diagnosis at all and I live where Bob does and know how vigorous peach trees can be. In two years that tree won’t even remember what happened if it responds with the vigor I hope it does. Even if the right side dies the left side will quickly develop callous stronger than the original tree, IMO.
If he saves it, he can have a nice crop next year.
I’d save it even if I was also trying to save at least some of the crop and I’d radically thin the fruit now even if it hadn’t broken and had sound branch structure. As I’ve often written, I believe most of the brix advantage of thinning fruit occurs in the 2 to 3 weeks before harvest. Cloud cover taught me that. That is, constant cloudy weather in the 3 weeks leading up to harvest… no sugar.
Sorry to see this happen! I agree with Fruitnut, take the fruit that you earned, the rootstock is still strong enough to handle new grafts for a fast recovery. Too risky to try to support and tie its back up now with fruit load. Good luck Bob, you have a lot of good advice.
Dennis
Kent wa
I doubt Bob has much concern with his supply of peaches this year or that he has even enough freezer space for his surplus. Usually squirrels assure a lot of crop removal for him, I think. Not a problem in our region this year- at least in the neighborhoods where I’m working. He probably didn’t get around to thinning because he has so many trees loaded with fruit.
If he needs peaches he can always visit me. I expect my crop will be fine from hear on out- as long as the monsoon doesn’t return. Pits may be split, however.
Thank you all! I’m going to head over this afternoon (I’ve got another lawn to mow around the corner, as it was pretty hot yesterday so I only did 2). I’ll try to bring everything with me to be flexible in my options.
While Fruitnut’s idea of leaving it as-is is quite appealing (least work, least risk), I 'm going to at least try to prop them up. I figure that leaving them on the ground ensures that some sort of animal will be all over them. They might get eaten anyway, but I’m really inviting it by leaving them on the ground. I think Richard’s suggestion is the way to produce the nicest looking tree in the long term, but there are tradeoffs and I’m putting more value in current year production.
But, I do recognize that I may screw it up and rip part of it off, so I’m going to bring my grafting materials with me as well. In the event that it disintegrates, I’ll immediately start on grafting the green growth to another part of the tree. And I mean grafting, not budding. I’ve tried budding and know I am no good at it. On the other hand, I’ve gotten pretty decent with a cleft graft and recently had success with jujube grafting green wood onto green wood.
And I get Fruitnut & Richard’s point that it may not heal well. Just because Alan is able to execute such a repair, it doesn’t mean that I can I’ll be checking to see how/if it heals (if I can even get it put back together) and be ready to fall back to the “cut it off” option either later this summer (after the fruit) or next spring.
I will thin a bit more fruit off. I had thought I thinned enough, but I guess the tree is telling me otherwise…This is the first year that I’ve had any fruit for Gloria and I suspect it is going to be larger than I expected. It is supposed to be ripe about a week after Loring and even with my lack of thinning, it is already larger than a well thinned Loring in my yard (pic below). I would point to the large fruit size to somewhat defend my thinning job. Maybe it is my lack of pruning a large size branch that is more to blame.
That was a weak branch union originally. Too steep of a branch angle. I don’t know how you can expect it to be any stronger the second time around. A better bet is just to save the bigger side. Either will require support and pruning. Lots of pruning to lessen leverage and weight.
I’ll be checking to see how/if it heals (if I can even get it put back together) and be ready to fall back to the “cut it off” option either later this summer (after the fruit) or next spring.