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poolecw

New Peach trees

poolecw
9 years ago

I recieved three new peach trees from Isons Nursary this week (Elberta, Parade, and Sureprince). I am more and more impressed with the quality of their stuff every time I get an order from them.

Anywho, the picture below is of a 3-4 yr old Parade Peach that I just planted. My question is this, would you remove any limbs now or would you wait a year or two? This tree has a lot of limbs, as you can see.

Comments (18)

  • Greg
    9 years ago

    I don't have a lot of experience with stone fruits so take my advice with a grain of salt.
    I planted an Arctic Jay nectarine 2 years ago that looked just like that. It was hard but I took out the lopping shears and removed all of the main trunk but the 3 lowest growing branches that had a good angle and spacing. The tree has done very well and with some training has grown into a perfectly vase shaped tree. So far it has been the most vigorous stone fruit I have planted. Doesn't this help the roots by having less tree to provide water to? I guess you could starve the roots too if you cut to much off? Maybe you should wait for more comments. LOL

  • fireballsocal
    9 years ago

    Do you want a short 8 foot tree or do you want to let it grow to its natural highth?

  • poolecw
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thanks for the advice greg, lol.

    As for the end goal, I'm going to try to keep them at around 8' to 10'.

    This post was edited by poolecw on Fri, Jan 30, 15 at 13:26

  • olpea
    9 years ago

    You may get a menagerie of valid answers, but for my part, I like to prune trees at planting. If you prune and spread branches early you will get spreading, wide, low trees. Here is a pic of some I took three weeks ago.

  • bunrab4
    9 years ago

    I wouldn't prune it now. Peach trees add a lot of wood in a year, so I would wait, then thin out from the middle. Wow, that's a beautiful little tree!!!

  • poolecw
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thanks guys... And yes, it is a nice looking tree. Every thing I've ordered from them has been top shelf. They specialize in muscadines. You should see the 2 yr old Darlene muscadines that I also got in.

  • rayrose
    9 years ago

    The tree has too many scaffolds at different levels, and a central leader. A peach tree should be grown with an open vase system. I'd prune off the central leader just above the bottom level of scaffolds. I know that may sound harsh to you, but in the long run, your aim is to grow a productive peach tree that will produce quality fruit, and that is the way to do it.

  • poolecw
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Well guys, I got home today and started wacking as suggested. Please tell me I didn't ruin it. By the way, this particular tree was a Sureprince, not a Parade.

  • poolecw
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Looking down...

  • Steve357
    9 years ago

    That looks perfect, exactly how I do it. If it were mine, I would cut the scaffold branches back some also.

  • Greg
    9 years ago

    Looks good! You may find that over the next couples of years you will need to take a couple more of the limbs if it starts to get crowded, but for now that should be fine.

  • poolecw
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thanks guys.

    I did leave a couple too many but my plan is to select one or two more to prune next year.

  • olpea
    9 years ago

    One other thing I would do would be to tie down the branches a bit.

    I whack my new trees just as you have done, but also tie the remaining scaffolds down. It seems like if the center wood is removed early, the tree will devote more resources to the remaining scaffolds (a good thing) but I also tie scaffolds down.

  • rayrose
    9 years ago

    You did a good job. I know it was hard, but it had to be done.
    Unlike Olpea, I don't tie down my scaffolds. When the tree starts to bear fruit, the weight from the fruit will naturally weigh them down. But everybody has their own
    particular method.

  • Scott F Smith
    9 years ago

    Looks good! I do just like Ray. With apples or pears I tie them down but not peaches.

    Scott

  • poolecw
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    I've got a couple planted, so I'll stake one down and leave the others.. just to see how it does

  • bear_with_me
    9 years ago

    That looks to me like a great pruning job!

  • Fascist_Nation
    9 years ago

    MAN!!!! You never ever get a tree looking like that bareroot. My rule of thumb is all the branches will be on one side of the tree. That has some great form to it!