It’s in a polytunnel where I’ve just moved. In early spring I pruned it quite hard, mainly to stop it growing through the plastic. There are a few peaches growing, but very slowly.
The problem I have is, there are plenty of pruning guides and videos, but none of them look like my tree.
In the picture you can see vigorous growth, but these are not the woody stems from the guides. Are they water shoots and if so, should I remove them?
Also, in my fruit tree book, it says to pinch back the leafy shoots to six leaves on the peach-bearing branches in May, but I can’t find that advice corroborated anywhere. Is this a good idea?
Peaches respond well if you prune them lightly. I’m not a peach expert i only have about 10 peach trees. I mostly groww pears. @Olpea is a peach expert. His peaches came very close to winning a new world record. @alan is a master pruner in the New york area where he works as an orchardist for the wealthiest elites. He almost worked for Martha Stewart. I put a couple of almost situations down for both of them noting there is really nobody better than them.
The green shoots are this years growth. They will harden and become woody as the season progresses.
While they are green, you can simply tear them out with your hands. You don’t even need pruners. Tear a good portion of them out (but not all) to thin the amount of new shoots in the tree. Mostly you’ll want to tear out the ones which are growing vertically.
Think of it like cutting hair. When I was younger I had so much hair the barber used thinning shears to thin the amount of hair, so it wouldn’t look like a rug. That’s what you want to do by tearing out the green shoots. Again, mostly tear out the ones growing vertically (either growing straight up or straight down) but to keep enough light on the lower growth, you’ll probably need to tear out some more horizontal shoots too.
Pinching back the tips will make the shoot grow more bushy and thicken up the stem. I could see that being helpful if you wanted a more compact tree in a high tunnel.
Btw, why is it you have to grow peaches in a high tunnel in Scotland? Is it to protect from frost, or to prolong the growing season?
Neglected? Looks like something I’d have. But I was recently thinking of trying to learn about pruning the peaches. I wild craft trees and let them go.
As far as the gardeners and orchardists for the rich…
Check out
Rich people are crazy with what they would spend on growing things.
Learning about pruning came to mind this year from some massive prune I did last year to one tree. I had a giant Asian pear tree, maybe 18 feet tall or more. It never produced much. It was supposed to be a Korean Giant, but it was mismarked and produced little Asian Pears. Last year it made some pears near the top. I have very long fruit harvesters, but my longest one would not reach them.
I was sick of the tree and topped about 10 feet off of it. More or less cut 40% of the tree off. I figured maybe it would produce some pears lower to the ground so I could try some. I don’t think I ever tried one pear from that tree since I planted it in '09. Anyway, this year it set a decent amount of fruit, so hopefully will see what it produces. The next step was to cut it down and put something else there. Maybe the tree figured if it does not produce, it will be cut down! Whatever it is, pruning seems to have some magic to it to make trees produce fruit.
In addition to Olpea’s advice take a picture in winter when the tree is dormant and ask the question about pruning. It will be easier to see the branches.
First of all your fruit isn’t growing because it is at the pit hardening stage. That’s normal. All peaches set there at that stage for weeks or months before the fruit starts to swell and then ripen.
I’ve been dealing with stone fruit trees in a greenhouse for twenty years. Spacing of trees has been 8x4 feet to as tight as 5x1.5 feet on dwarf rootstock. What you do is chose a height that you can live with and within the confines of the GH. Yours like mine would be about the height of that horizontal truss.
Then you prune to thin out branches and reduce height below max height. Then you tip and prune at least every month. Tip those new shoots. Beyond that you can train branches more horizontally if you want to spread out the tree.
Just as importantly you cut back on water if possible. That not only slows down the growth but it makes far sweeter fruit. You may not be able to cut back water if the tree is rooted outside the GH. But do it if you can. It’s your best weapon to control size and increase fruit quality.
Here are some pictures of my new trees in their third leaf. This is my third planting of stone fruit in the GH. First was 8x4ft, then 5x1.5ft, now 7x3ft.
Trees have had one major pruning and numerous minor prunings and tipping in three months.
As I understand it, then, the green shoots are this year’s growth, which will become next year’s fruiting wood? I’ll bear that in mind as I thin them out, probably posting some progress pictures in case I go too far. As with cutting hair, it’s easy enough to do, it’s knowing what to leave on that’s the key!
The tree was in the tunnel when I moved here, about 7 months ago. What you see is about half of what was there initially. I had to disentangle a trellis from the branches, so someone had started out training it as a fan, but clearly given up and just let it grow unchecked. I’d like to continue it as a fan, as it’s right up against the side of the tunnel.
The previous owner very kindly left me a peach on the tree, as a welcoming gesture. Sadly, it wasn’t sweet, but starchy, and ‘woolly’ in texture.
I assume frost, and a longer growing season, are reasons for putting them in tunnels, as well as protection from birds. It’s rare to see a peach tree up here, so I’m not sure.
We think of Scotland as a cold country, but here by the sea, in the Moray microclimate, it’s pretty mild, in the grand scheme of things.
Yes, this years wood is next years fruiting wood. You don’t want to cut it all off. Late growth won’t set as many fruit buds.
Your tree was started too high. It should have lower branches more like my trees. And it’s in the wrong spot. It needed more headroom. But you can train branches down lower. Pull them lower with strings tied to the ground. Or train them towards the center of the tunnel.
I would just keep it hedged to keep it away from the plastic, hard to say when to stop in the summer given a rather unique climate for it, but probably don’t hedge after the beginning of July or so. You’re trying to get it to produce lots of 30-45cm long twigs to bear on next year. If anything vigorous comes out of the middle, shorten it to about 10cm if it’s growing outwards or remove it all together if it’s growing straight up. If you can open up the middle to get as much light as you can as well.
I have 3 acres or peaches and do most of my pruning from mid April through mid July, the clean things up in the dormant season. If it gets away from you, dormant only pruning is fine too. How tall is the trunk on it? If you wanted to put more in, I’d recommend having a trunk about 45-60cm, shorter trunk will give you more bearing area. On most of my trees I do a modified Spanish Bush training, it works very well for keeping things compact. If you have the space, you can spread it much wider though through repeated pruning to outward facing buds on the vigorous growth or training by tying down or something similar.
It’s done. I had to be brutal, as many of the shoots were growing towards the plastic. I’ve left a couple on the right-hand side to train, and should have done so on the left, but that will have to be next year’s job. There’s an extra picture showing how close it is to the side. Thanks again for the advice.
I’ll tag this question onto this thread, since it’s closely related. I’ve just planted a new Lord Napier nectarine tree in the same tunnel. As you can see, it’s starting to bud, so some beginner’s training/pruning tips would be appreciated. The main question is, do I need to do anything to it now, or leave it alone?
