I have been growing a red peach from a pit and it's in its fourth year (2nd year in the ground). It has been a thriving tree until now, and I had hoped that we'd get a peach or two this year (we won't). We had unseasonable hot weather in February and the tree looked like it was going to pop with blooms, but then the weather got really cold for a few weeks and when it warmed again, we got just a few buds. Then, the lower branches all leafed out nicely, but the upper branches got leafs at the tips and none in the middle and the new leaves at the base of the upper branches are curled, but NOT red and warty like peach tree leaf curl. None of the good leaves have any curl nor red warts.

Besides the weird weather causing the tree to be confused, the only things I can think of are 1) I fertilized too late, or 2) I cleared out ground cover from under the tree by hand (perhaps I disturbed sensitive top roots?) Now that I think of it... I did the same to my plum tree and it has a similar problem... however, it experienced the same weather and tardy fertilization.

I was waiting until after fruiting to prune it, but since we didn't get any fruit, should I go ahead and prune it to conserve the tree's energy because the tree doesn't have enough nutrient/water uptake to supply the whole tree?

Many thanks in advance.