Thinning vs poor fruit set

General Fruit Growing
#41

This is obviously an old thread, but since I was pruning today I thought I’d show something perhaps interesting.

In post 17 above I showed a pic of a tree I had severely pruned this spring (not the second pic in post 38, but the first pic, post 17). I had quite a few trees like the one in 17, trees which hardly had any fruit, and were pruned to remove any shoots which were blank.

I’ve been doing fall pruning for a couple weeks now and noticed a lot of the trees are unrecognizable from the butchering they received this spring.

Below is a 24-007. It’s not the 28-007 shown in pic 17, but it was pruned just as hard because, like the 28-007s, it hardly had any fruit set after the frosts.

Here is a pic I took today after I’d already removed a little wood with a chainsaw the other day.

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These trees really filled back in over the summer. Thought I’d show a “before and after” pic after I fall pruned this tree today. Here is the after pic:

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Even after all these years, sometimes I’m surprised how fast peach trees grow. One thing I have noticed is that some older trees don’t fill in the way these younger trees do. They just won’t push adventitious buds the way younger trees will, and they don’t have quite the vigor.

Here’s a really young peach tree I took a pic of today. It’s a volunteer seedling. This is the first year - it sprouted this spring. I budded a named variety to the base of it about a month ago. This seedling grew faster than most. The shovel is about 4’ tall, so I think the tree is 6 or 7’ tall.

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Here is a row of seedlings (planted the pits last summer/fall). They didn’t grow as much as the one above. This is more normal growth. Actually I’d prefer a little less growth for seedlings. When the trunks get too big, the trunk wood acts like older wood and the budding success rate goes down. I got about 1/2 of these budded about a month ago (I hope to do some grafting on the remainders this spring.)

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Anyway, my point is that healthy peach trees grow like weeds (in this locale). But they don’t always thrive here. Winter lows and rain are an anathema to peach trees.

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Heavy pruning Peach
Peach newbie
Nectarine pruning question
#42

Mark,
I think the root stock also has a lot to do with the growth. I pruned my
trees in late August and the ones that are on vigorous root stocks, especially Guardian, have almost fully grown back. While the ones on Halford, have maintained their shape. We’ve also had some much needed rain the past month, after a summer long drought. I’ve decided to not feed any of my peach trees next spring. It’s just a supposition, but I think that the trees with such vigorous growth are also more prone to bacterial spot. I know that you get more than your fair share, and that might be a very big contributing factor.

#43

Those are beautiful young plants Mark. I wish my first year peach trees would look like that. They still haven’t put on much growth at all. I’m kind of concerned that there might be something wrong with them. I’d be ashamed to show any pics of my puny little trees.

We had a cool wet spring and then a warm wet summer. Over the last couple months it’s been hot and very dry. I know those conditions can’t be good for my peach trees, but the apple and pear trees seem to be doing much better.

Don’t know if it matters, but I didn’t fertilize any of my fruit trees after planting, so I wonder if that’s why my peach trees look so poor. I read conflicting reports about if first year trees should get any fert at all, so I didn’t. I hope it doesn’t cost me these trees over the winter.

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#44

IMO fertilizing first year trees is very important, because it helps them to
get established.

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#45

That’s an interesting thought Ray. Most publications indicate low vigor trees are more susceptible to bacterial spot. https://ag.tennessee.edu/EPP/Extension%20Publications/Plant%20Diseases%20Bacterial%20Spot%20of%20Peach.pdf

After reflecting on it though, I do sort of agree. The extra shade produced by vigorous trees slows drying of foliage, and we know wet foliage produces bac. spot. This spring I tried to prune a lot of peach trees of new growth after the first flush (just went through and yanked the new shoots out by hand) but I think I could have done more.

Subdood,

Around here the biggest problem with poor growth on new peach trees is 1) poor soil drainage and 2) grass sod too close to the trunk.

Around here all the commercial guys fertilize new trees continually through fertigation. They want to get the trees into production as fast as possible. It does work.

I generally don’t fertilize peach trees because they receive wood chips, but this year I fertilized the row of seedling peach trees in the pic above (but I didn’t fertilize the lone seedling in the other pic above) because they kind of stalled a little bit in the middle of summer. I wanted to keep them actively growing because it makes budding easier, so I threw some urea on them.

The response was significant. They started growing rapidly. I plan to start using a little more N. Not so much on peach trees, but on trees which are naturally slower growing here, like E. plums and cherries.

This season I should have applied N to the blackberries. I have traditionally relied on mulch for the N, but the mulch is all decomposed at the farm on the blackberries and I could tell the plants suffered. Vigor was lower and berries were smaller compared to plants at the house which have continually received mulch. I also should have applied N to the tomatoes, because they didn’t grow as much this year either.

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#46

So, I guess my plants should have got a little boost by fertilizing them. I did put down some bark mulch around them, but that apparently didn’t help much. Obviously I can’t give them anything now, so I hope they can make it thru their first winter. You mentioned poor drainage, I wonder if all the rain we got contributed to their poor performance. Is the urea you use just another name for chicken manure?

By not giving them anything this year, I guess this will delay them producing anything until at least 2 years from now?

I meant to ask how yer new chainsaw is doing for you. Looks like you’ve been doing quite a bit of work.

#47

Subdood,

Here, weather cooperating, peaches start producing in their third leaf. If the trees are pushed hard, they can start producing in year 2.

Agricultural urea is considered a synthetic fertilizer. It generally comes in the form of little white round pellets. They dissolve readily in water, but will also volatilize on wet soil, particularly on windy days. The most common form is 48-0-0 (NPK). Chicken litter contains organically derived urea as well as other minerals.

Thanks for asking about the chain saw. I think I’ll go ahead on follow up on that thread to perhaps offer some closure to the questions I was asking.