When do you thin the fruit?
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That’s a bit early. I’d say another 1-2 weeks. But you can start whenever you want. Just take into consideration any possible freeze damage or other losses that might still occur. There is also the possibility that all the fruits won’t stay on the tree. They might not be pollinated with a viable seed. Those can stall out and never mature to good fruit. But if they swell up rapidly they’ll usually stick.
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It’s wind for us that seems to be a good thinner.
I grew in Amarillo for 30 years. Spring winds were bad enough to defoliate the early leaves. But it didn’t thin the fruit to any extent at all.
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@fruitnut Not trying to high jack this thread and if you don’t mind I would like to ask you a question. Peaches post bloom and before shuck split. The peach looks like an elongated funnel what does it mean if the pointy tip turns brown? I noticed that on a few post bloom flowers. I’ll see if I cant get a picture which should explain better that I did verbally.
Edit… May Rich peach
Thanks
The tip, stigma, soon turns brown. That’s normal. As long as the plump fuzzy part stays green the fruit is good. Get ready to thin in May!
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Thank You!
The first step in thinning is pruning. Once you are convinced you have a heavy fruit set, meaning you have 5 to 10 times more fruit than the tree should carry, time to prune.
Your tree looks tall and lanky. A lot of that top should go.
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Open center is the best shape for peaches. Wider than they are tall. All your thinning is from the ground
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I dont disagree with you, standing on the ground would be best. But when you live with a large population of white tail deer, I needs scaffolds a good 6 feet off the ground. It also makes mowing around the trees a heck of a lot easier also.
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squirrels thin mine by 70% to 100%. I don’t have to lift a finger.
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I agree - it is tall and lanky. I have been letting it get on up because I too, like my scaffold branches about five or six feet because a single straight five ft trunk makes it easier to keep the coons and possums out. This is the first year I am going to allow it to fruit and I will start pruning it fairly heavy next year. I just thinned it a little this year and cut everything out of the middle.
My experience too. The only time wind seems to take any noticeable peach fruit off the trees is when the fruit is ripe.
Strangely, even hail doesn’t remove much immature fruit. It just beats it up.
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JLC,
The Deer were the first pest we fought, a simple electric fence did the job. The raccoons and squirrels moved in so I had to modify the fence for all critters
Do you use baffles/sheet metal?
I own a farm in a very rural area. There are no squirels and occasional i see a racoon but they are not common here. Deer and rabbits are our biggest nusances. I use about a 8 inch diameter of 2 foot tall hardware cloth and 4 foot diameter of field fencing which is 4 foot tall.
Deer will graze any new shoots that grow about 5 foot tall or below and that stick out past the field fence. So i try and start my first scaffolds about 6 foot tall.
It seems the field fence makes just enough of a strange noise to spook the deer if the get up against it. This may not work well for uran or city areas as deer are more used to noises. But here they are not.
2 foot hardware cloth allows me to spray the trunks and prune out and suckers or side branches that sprout down low easily. I tried various tree sprials and tubes, they did nothing but cause problems with mold and the rabbits would work the tubes to get at some tasty bark.
Here is a spindly apple I planted earlier this week, pictures speak better than words for me.
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Just make sure you keep the tree trimmed so that sun can get to the peaches. Sun promotes buds for next year and colors the fruit. Peaches need it.
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and regarding the deer, you can also try a solar powered electric fence. It works well if they aren’t really hungry. We use them in the orchard during the establishment years.
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I dont really want to go the electric fence route. Both my neighbors have black labs that my wife and I plus our two dogs, enjoy having around. Plus we have cooper (basset hound) drop by for an occasional visit. I think they all contribute to having no squirels and seldom seen racoons. I especially like it when cooper shows up and gets to hollering on rabbits.
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We dont have enough rabbits to be a problem. But the coons, possums, and a few squirrels get every peach, pear, and apple. They dont wait until there ripe. They get arkansas black and granny smith in Aug - and they dont get ripe until late oct
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