Hi, I’ve been a long time lurker and I wanted to ask the experts about this O’Henry peach tree. This is it’s 2nd season in the ground. I ordered it bare root and unfortunately, it has only produced 1 scaffold branch. It is very heavy on one side. It produced very well last year. My concern is for the long term. Is there anything that can be done to balance this tree out? Can I graft anything on the trunk to try to produce more scaffold branches (bud grafting?). I hate to have to pull the tree and start over. Other than the lopsidedness, this peach (and my others) have done very well here and I’d love to save this one. Thank you for any advice you may have!
There are many with more peach experience than me but I’m going to give it a shot.
I would tie down those two scaffold branches nearest the camera and try to open up the canopy. If successful, it may improve the angles and even up the tree a bit. The branches are pretty large and I don’t know how much they will move over time. Right now the angles are too severe and emanating from the same spot. Those weak crotch angles are a set up for breakage.
Another option might be to head the large branches at the point where selected laterals are pointing to the outside. Peaches grow so fast they will recover quickly and will be rejuvenated at the same time. Having the right framework is crucial. I would hate to take out a tree with a good root system when judicious pruning might be sufficient.
Second spring after pruning as it was leafing out.
Agree with @Rosdonald that new peach trees put out a lot of growth… and as you can see from my first year pruning you can be somewhat brutal to them to get them shaped like you want.
Here’s a solution that’s simple and gets all heavy pruning done this year while still providing a crop this year…
Prune now to end up with three scaffolds. In the next to last picture there’s a small branch going mostly up but towards the open side. That could be a scaffold to fill in the open side. Save the two big scaffolds running parallel to the wall. Take off all the big growth above the small branch and the low scaffold heading towards the wall. There will be some strong new growth from near the big cut. Keep what is helpful and cut out what isn’t. Train what’s left and any new growth to fill in open areas.
The tree is fine, just give it some tough love. And don’t worry if you make a mistake. Peaches grow rapidly and it will recover.
Hi Andrea,
There’s a lot you can to this nice tree to improve its shape and strength to carry fruit loads. It appears to me that you have not yet pruned the tree since planted. Regarding the sharper crotch angles, it’s too late to improve the angles much, so I would prune each of those limbs back about 1/3 now. That will allow the crotch to strengthen before heavy fruit loads occur. I would place one strong props just under those limbs being careful to pad where they touch the bark, to push the trunk back near vertical. Then I would tie an empty milk jug towards the end of each of those three limbs and place enough rocks in the jugs to begin to weigh them down (punch holes in the jug so rain does not accumulate and break the limb). Each week add a bit more weight by adding stones. When the limbs are about 20 degree angle above horizontal, stop adding stones. Once the fruit begins to develop, remove some stones to avoid breaking the limbs.
Next: see your second pic down: I would rig a bow, in a similar way as in my pics below, onto those two limbs closest to the camera and go about once per week to put more tension on the two ties that go to each tree limb. After my lower grafts failed, I decided to rig the bow and use a training method to get a more erect growth. So I pruned a third of each of my surviving limbs, and rigged them to the bow. I have cinched up the tension about three times since last fall. The tree is now nearly erect! You can do the same! Just make sure someone helps you to rig the bow and use soft material to tie around each limbs to avoid damaging the bark. And do this process gradually so as not to break your limbs by pulling too much at each visit!
Looking from the side that this tree was heavily leaning: To encourage the tree to be more upright, I put in a prop that I can go back a few times once a month to push the tree more upright.
Looking at my bow configuration: To answer your first question about grafting on a new scaffold, I would advise not to do so. You can see on this tree where I placed two grafts last year attempting to do just that. These are just above where the bow rest against the tree trunk. But both grafts failed. It’s really hard to get a peach graft to work on wood older that 2 years!
I’ve got an Early Elberta that was doing the same. Any branches moving in the direction you want them to, let them grow. You may have to tie them back because they will just grow towards the sun like the rest.
Early in the growing season you can take a knife and slice (think thin, paper cut width) halfway around in a 45-degree angle (not fully around!!!) on each existing scaffold branch near the trunk. This will stunt the growth to those branches while they heal and the energy from the roots will flow more readily to the new, not-partially-girdled branches. Don’t try this too late in the year because you want the girdling to heal over before going dormant. Next winter, don’t prune the new scaffold branches at all.
Another thing to try is to cut a wedge out of the cambium about 1” wide, 1/8” tall, all the way through the cambium. This will trick the tree into thinking that is the new top of the tree and when it heals over it may form a new tiny branch there before the end of the growing season. I think an important detail is that the spot needs to be exposed to the sun. I tried this on the north-eastern side of one of my trees and it just healed over.
I encourage you to search this forum and YouTube about these techniques so you know I am not some weirdo who likes to torture trees.
Depends on how you define viable. Will the leaning have any negative long term effect on yield or health? No, but in the long term, say in 10 years, without a scaffold growing away from the stone wall, it’s just going to have a tendency to lean into the wall more and more every year, due to a lack of balancing weight on all sides.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the leaning aside from aesthetics. From a functional point of view, the only issue is that when it’s leaning, if you neglect to thin, overcropping will more likely result in broken branches since it’s always putting its a greater % of weight off center.
I have LOTS of peach trees and several of them that lean the other way (away from a stone wall, due to the shade it provides or lean down hill on a slope). They grow fine. Just a little more pruning and careful thinning needed sometimes.
I see this type of training (or perhaps more accurately - untraining) from nurseries which send big peach trees. That’s why I hate getting 3/4" and up peach trees. All the lower leaf buds on the trunk are dead, and one ends up with a tree with a blast of scaffolds at the same junction, sometimes.
It’s a bit tough to make a tree of it, but I would never cut an established peach tree down and start over just because it looked like hell. Generally, you can make a tree of it, even though it’s far from ideal.
On this one, believe it or not, I’d probably cut everything off except the most horizontal branch, or maybe keep the two most horizontal branches going in the most different directions. Cut everything else going up and then make a tree out of the two most horizontal branches going the most different directions.
The tree will fill in eventually. It’s for sure not ideal, and the crotch angles are far from ideal, but the idea is to get the tree in a manageable shape producing fruit. It may not last the longest because of weak crotch angles, but sometimes these trees surprise you and last as long as a perfectly trained peach tree.
There will be some loss of fruit from the severe pruning I mentioned, but long term, I think it will produce more fruit to get rid of some of that cluster mess.
It will also invigorate the tree. I notice the tree didn’t put enough growth on the last season. You want about 18" average growth of shoot extension per season. That tree has lots of short shoots, which didn’t put on enough growth.
Yes you’re so right about the 3/4" and up…when the tree came in I was surprised it was as big as it was (in diameter) and I was worried then. I would definitely prefer a smaller tree. This one came from Grow Organic, but to be fair, the other peach and apricot I got from them in the same shipment were the same size and they have exploded and thrived and have a great structure. This one though, it just didn’t want to push out any branches except for the one, such a silly looking tree. Thank you so much for your thoughtful reply, I really appreciate it! Also, is there a website for sourcing smaller trees? I’ve noticed all the fruit trees they sell at the big box stores and nurseries seem to be way too big and overgrown. I like the small trees and I like being able to shape them from the beginning. Thanks again!
Typically, southern nurseries have smaller peach trees because they June bud their trees. What that means is that they bud brand new young stock in very early summer, break the tree over to force the bud and then let the bud grow. So the new bud only has part of a season to grow. This produces a very small tree for sale the next season.
I have about 70 trees which where shipped out today to my orchard, from a southern nursery which does exactly that (Cumberland Valley Nursery in TN). Vaughn Nursery also in TN, follows the same practice. The trees shipped out today are only supposed to be about 5/16" and 18" tall.
Northern nurseries, like Adams County, Schlabachs, Cummins, etc. do mostly fall budding of peaches. That means the trees get a full season of growth. West Coast nurseries in WA follow the same propagation techniques. I’ve ordered plenty of trees from these types of nurseries, but I always specify I want the smallest peach trees available. Not only are they cheaper, they are more trainable.
Sometimes I can’t help getting these obnoxiously big peach trees. Most of the time most of the buds on the leader are dead and gone, but there may be some buds low down on the leader which are still alive. In that case, I behead the tree and simply grow a new leader. It really just depends on what you have to work with, but you can generally make something work as long as they sent you a live tree.
Btw, if they sent you a properly trained tree, I wouldn’t mind large peach trees. In fact that would be an advantage. But properly trained peach trees don’t fit in the package box very well, so big peach trees are essentially big sticks to fit in the package box.
Question for you @TNHunter how did you get that peach scaffold on the left to cross over and fall so nicely into filling that space? Was it crossing over naturally or did you influence by tying down etc? I have a young apple tree with a very similar shape. It falls most naturally into an open center, but there is one scaffold that’s out of sorts. I would have to cross it over to even things up and I’m not sure that’s doable.
Just one more thought. It was my bedtime last night when I posted and didn’t perhaps look enough at the wall facing the peach tree. If you can’t train your peach scaffolds to go over the wall, you’ll have to select the upright leader, cut the tip off and grow scaffolds away from the wall.
Or you can make the scaffolds facing the wall turn by selecting shoots going parallel to the wall, or tying them to go parallel to the wall. I’ve even forced scaffolds to do a U-turn in some cases.
I may try to post a pic of some funky training I’ve done to peach trees, if I get some time.
Training peaches for a home orchard often doesn’t need to be as rigorous as in a commercial setting. Most home growers aren’t going to start over totally on a tree that has already bore fruit and will again this year barring a freeze.
And starting over does have risks. One doesn’t know on a peach where new growth will emerge after a massive deheading. Doing that also assumes that the home grower can manage the new growth to a better outcome.
Sometimes a solution that isn’t ideal in regards to tree strength is good enough for a home orchard tree. And simple instructions are more likely to work than complicated. Most people asking for pruning advice want to know what to do with their tree, rather than trying to figure out what you did with your tree. And then applying that to their situation.
I think I gave a simple solution above that will work and still give a good crop this year.
I could also use some help, i have a year old seedling peach grew a staggering 2.50 meters in her first year, naturaly it splitted into two leaders very close to soil. Its onto a southfacing wall ( only possible placing due to late spring frosts). I removed all inward growing branches but as can be seen it has lots of branches coming out of the leaders, too much? I was thinking of cutting the leaders this summer, to the height of the wall and then start leading them in both left and right direction. How would u guys proceed?
That’s a pretty simple situation. The tree is at the prefect stage to do major pruning.
I’d keep one side or the other but you could keep both if that suits you. So cut off one side right down at the base. Save the side with the best branches where you want them. Now head back above a branch. Save one or more branches going in each direction parallel to the wall. And/or keep branches growing away from the wall. Those branches will be your scaffolds.
If you keep both big shoots that are there now, I’d use a rope to tie them together so they don’t split out. That would be a neat looking tree but no better than cutting out one.
@Rosdonald … best I remember that top right proposed scaffold branch (first pruning pic) died or was removed… then the other three grew into what was left.
That was a rising star peach tree.
Dang OFM and brown rot eventually got too bad for no spray peaches here.
