I guess that I just DON"T get how to prune a peach. My apples are doing good.
I have a tree that the fruiting wood just keeps getting higher and higher in the air. I can now easily walk under every branch and cannot thin the top.
I am pretty sure there is no way to develop lower braches as the wood is old and doesn’t look like any buds.
Also the idea that peaches only come on last years wood kinda tricks me also. I have peaches on most every small branch but can’t see how all of those limbs are only 1 year old. I admit I need to watch closer.
It’s about 8 years old and If I have to I’ll replace it however I have two new ones that I would like to keep lower to the ground in the future.
The reason why it got so high to begin with is you are losing your lower branches due to having too many high branches shading out the low ones. So one thing you need to do is generally thin out the tree more, so some light is getting further into the tree. I had a few of my early peach trees get into this rut, I was not very knowledgeable of pruning. To get them back down I pruned off large amounts of the upper parts of the tree. If you take off enough it should stimulate some lower shoots to come out.
If you start from the beginning with a low, open center tree you can keep the tree low by spreading the scaffolds to the exact height you want them by tying or staking them down as they grow. If you rely entirely on pruning for this the tree is more likely to get away from you. The scaffolds will also be weaker from wounds on the upper side.
Summer pruning is also highly useful to help keep trees low by keeping good light close to the scaffolds so there is a constant annual cycle of fresh shoots emanating from the scaffold and not from higher secondary branches. Anything more than 30 leaves above nearest fruit is expendable.
You are correct that it is usually impossible to train a peach tree back down, except from the ends of existing scaffolds, although there are a few varieties of peaches that will send out shoots from old wood when you prune them aggressively.
I agree it’s the shading which inhibits or kills lower branches. Peaches are very sensitive to this (much more so than, say, apples). Summer pruning helps a lot.
For vigorous peach trees a lot of wood has to be removed. A friend of mine once told me they, “prune their peach trees back to nothing”. This is pretty much true. Sometimes it seems like we remove about 50% of the fruiting wood in the spring. For our peach trees I almost prune them to one dimension thickness on the scaffolds in the spring time.
What I mean is that there will be all kinds of fruiting wood branching off below and above the level of the scaffold. I almost take off all the wood below and all the wood above, leaving only fruiting wood going somewhat sideways to the scaffold.
I say “almost” because I do leave some vertical wood if it has peaches and is not too vigorous, and I leave some extra wood out toward the end of the scaffolds, but more toward the center I try to leave closer to a single horizontal plane (not very thick) of fruiting wood. That you have all this fruiting wood which is tricking you into thinking it’s two years old, tells me you probably have too much vigorous wood left on the tree.
Ouch. I have a two year old tree that I thought was beautiful. Now it’s sounds like I need to cut most of it off.
It is already too tall. I will try and get a picture of it with me standing beside it today.
I think the old tree is pretty much what it is. I’ll get the giant crop off of it with a ladder this year and consider replacing it.
Choose what you want for 3 to 4 scaffolds now and agresively cut back everything above to very close to the trunk or turn it into an open center now and cut the middle out. Show no fear, peach trees can sense it.
I’m game but I want to make sure that I understand perfectly. My wife will never stop laughing if I kill this tree.
I am going to cut off the entire half of the tree.
Now, not wait until dormant?
OK after looking closer I have a set of scaffolds about a foot above the top of the post. That’s about 6’
I’ll only be whacking off about a 1/3rd.
Do you have coons there are squirrels that are likely to take fruit? If so, you may want to start the branch structure after at least 4’ of trunk so you can construct a baffle. Even if deer are around it is better to have some height.
If not I pretty much agree with Rayrose. Also, you should remove the peaches from the branches you keep so they are fully committed to vegetative growth.
The V shape is very poor as such configurations on a peach are likely to split down the middle from the weight of crop. That branch goes regardless of height of trunk.
You won’t kill the tree by pruning it hard now. There is plenty of season for it to grow new leaves and gather lots of energy if you remove the fruit. If you wait until dormancy you lose a season and conversion to the shape you want will not only take longer but also be harder.
Give it a couple handfuls of high nitrogen fertilizer as well as soon as possible (about a half cup of actual N. or a full cup of urea).
I do have MANY squirrels and raccoon however I am not in a position where I can shape my tree to avoid them.
If I baffle this one then they’ll get in to the other 19 trees most of which are bud9 that I’m pretty sure I can’t have 4’ of
trunk on. I do have an effective squirrel control strategy.
So I’ll shorten it to 45 inch trunk, remove the remaining fruit and fertilize. At 45 inches the V will be gone.
