I have read the summer prune related discussion threads in this forum and watched YouTube videos.
Summer starts in the same month and day through out the country. But tree’s growth in different locations will be in different rate. So, in short season areas of zone 5, when is the month and day to start summer prune? How much to take out of a new growth ? How do you prune upright branches? I would like to have discussions here to address the summer prune time, summer prune styles, and the pro’s and con’s in different ways of doing it, or not doing the summer prune at all. Is the summer prune really needed to balance the growth in zone 5?
Frankly, my peach trees do not put a lot of growth each year. It is into summer now, most new growths are about 5" , some are even shorter, (almost no fruits on the tree) the upright ones are about 1’. The new growths already form hardwood, the spring growth has not stopped yet. Is this the right time to start summer prune?
I am talking about zone 5 peach tree’s summer prune specifically.
How does it affect the tree’s next year’s flowerbuds if I do not prune these upright branches off and let the leafs continue to turn the sun energy into tree’s stored energy. I can always do the winter prune to take the upright branches off. Did anyone calculate the tree energy gain or lose with summer prune or no summer prune?
I have read different ways to prune these upright branches. One way is to completely remove the branch, another way is to leave two leafs /a stub and let the buds grow into small branches. So which way is better
I all go for the idea of bringing the tree size down. My tree is too tall. But isn’t the winter prune supposed to bring the tree’s size down as a part of adjusting the tree structure?
Discussions are welcome
If your trees are stunted you don’t need to summer prune at all, you need to figure out why they aren’t growing vigorously, IMO.
Peach trees in good soil and sun tend to be very vigorous growers and can be pruned throughout the growing season until about Sept here in Z6 and then it’s probably best to lay off of them because very late summer pruning supposedly makes them more susceptible to winter cold injury.
I prune them continuously, especially when I’m thinning fruit in later spring, especially the more vigorous trees, because I don’t want growth that is so far above the fruit that it shades the leaves that are serving fruit and this years shoots that will be next years crop.
Same thing with the other stone fruit and pomes I grow- pruning is a constant process during the bulk of the growing season for me.
I’m speaking for the humid regions. I know very little about managing fruit trees where one controls the spigot and can regulate growth that way, as well as being able to consistently realize very high brix.
I do exactly like Alan described. My focus for summer pruning (which I actually continually do starting May and probably continue till mid/end of August) is to remove branches growing in wrong locations, including vigorous upright ones. If I can bend a branch and tie it, I will not remove it. This not only reduce shading, but direct the tree’s energy where growth is needed.
One mistake I did once is doing a major pruning job in July (probably removing ~30% of branches from a tree that was growing very vigorously and was too big), which prompted vigorous new branch growth and most of the new branches didn’t have enough time later in the summer for fruit bud development.
I agree with Alan that your tree seems stunted. I have about 25 peach/nectarine trees, and most are full of new growth that is 1-2’ long, some are even more than 2’. I actually have grafts that I did this spring that are more than a foot long.
That’s impressive, only my J. plum grafts grow like that, but some of my peach grafts have shown their first leaves in the last week. I hold off on grafting peaches until May and a warm forecast, did you graft yours sooner and get a good percentage of takes? I’m at about 75% this year, which for peaches and nects is probably as much success as I’ve ever had. J. plums I graft at first growth and they usually succeed. On established JP trees I’ve had a graft become like a 1" diameter, 8’ tall well branched tree the very first year of growth, but that was exceptional, and owed itself to the vigor of the tree and earliness of the graft.
One thing I think about when I summer pruning is whether I want graft wood from a tree. I will leave water sprouts on trees for that- in the center of the tree.
The tree is about 10’ tall or taller. It was growing a lot of long branches till fruit production. Then its growth slow down significantly. I didn’t do any summer pruning till this year. Its branches move further and further away from the center and vigorous growth most happens on the top 1/3 section. I want to move the canopy down, ideally to between 3~8’ region, and shorten the scaffolds during the winter pruning to make them closer to the center. The dilemma I face is that if I summer prune the upper canopy which theoretical will encourage lower branches growth because the tree energy is re-directed downward. But by removing the canopy the tree has less leafs to make energy to support the tree’s growth since the tree used up its stored energy by now. It depends on the leafs to make energy to support its future growth. The tree may not have enough energy to grow new branches in mid or lower section meanwhile continue to form fruit buds.
My Redhaven was heavily pruned last year and now almost every branch has a fruit on it. That makes it hard to decide how much pruning to do in June. Growth has been 12 inches or less. I’m wondering if I should wait till early July, about 2 weeks before ripening, to prune.
You tempted me to walk out to the orchard at 6 am (before I head out) to measure a few grafts. Here are the results:
A few peach grafts are actually exactly 2’ long.
The majority of peach grafts are a little less or more than 1’.
Plums and cots are 30-32”.
The single pear graft is 1’ long.
Apples come as a surprise to me (but this is my first to graft apples) as they are the slowest growers, about half a foot each.
My first round of grafting this year was during the April 11-13 warm spell. I have 100% success rate with plums, apples, pear. For cots I had 2 failures from about 10 grafts, but the quality of those two scions was not the best. For peaches/nectarines I had 4 failures out of 24 grafts, which is 83% success rate, that’s my lowest success with peaches in years, typically I get 90+ % success. I think there are several factors that reduced my success rate this year; first we had many cold nights in the fourties and even thirties after I grafted, second, most of my grafting this year was on Guradian rootstock that has been growing for one season in the ground, and I essentially top-worked these small trees, and they were not very vigorous growers (they were struggling from lack of nutrition most of the growing season last year), third, I did not water enough and we had a dry spring. Actually all my peach failed grafts started growing, but then they got stunted and died.
I fertilize with 10:10:10 fertilizer, but I also used some urea this spring for the first time. Last couple of years my trees were not uniformly growing well, some were and others were not. It turned out my soil is very poor in phosphorus, and potassium (the soil analysis that I did didn’t include nitrogen), and I assume nitrogen too! So, this March I fertilized all trees with half a pound of 10:10:10, and four weeks later with quarter a pound of urea per tree.
I spread 10-10-10 in the spring too( I do this every spring. I may have not watered it down). I also add some general purpose Miraclegro at four corner spots in mid-late May. Recently, right before the rain ,I spread some Miracle gro bloom booster for the rain to bring the P&K to the root zone.
Do you do fall fertilize? I have heard it booster the stored energy therefore more fruits set the next spring
I grafted them between April 11-13, whip and tongue, cleft and bark. All failures were bark grafts. I like whip and tongue best. I try to make the surface of contact 1-3”.
I started doing whip and tongue last year. In previous years, I used to do mostly cleft grafts, and my success rate was similar. I switched to s as hip and tongue as my favorite as I think it provides larger contact surface, and is structurally stronger.
I don’t fertilize after July, probably not even after June. I forgot to mention that my trees get 10-12 hours of sun. My trees are young (2nd/3rd leaf), so they should show good vigor under favorable conditions. For older trees in my old property, I learned it is important not to over crop a tree, as it can get stunted.
Also, I think watering down the fertilizer is important.