I planted a contender peach tree on a semi dwarfing rootstock from stark bros in the fall of 2024. The tree I received seems to have been pruned to a central leader so far. I wanted
to prune it to an open center but the branching is quite high on the tree about 4 feet off the ground. I don’t see many buds lower on the main trunk so my worry is if I perform a heading cut this spring at the knee high position I would like. I would not get lateral branch growth. Any advise I how to improve this trees structure?
If you are protecting your trees from deer you may want to keep the central leader for a while and start the branches at least 3’4’ up, but if you want a conventional low open center you can remove the existing branches and cut the leader at the height you want to begin its 3 or 4 branches. Wait for the tree to begin growing so you are sure that the leader is vital0 otherwise you can tie the largest branch to the stake to make it straight
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