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Fruit & Orchards

Pruning peach - central leader method

11 years ago

Can I prune a peach tree with a central leader? What are the downsides of this for a peach? I think it would make a nicer looking tree in my backyard. I also what some decent fruit production but since I only have a few trees, I am less interested in my own personal efficiency.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Anthony

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Comments (4)

alan haigh
11 years ago
I usually manage peaches to central leader for first 3 years and have some that I've managed this way for much longer. You need to make sure that enough sun is getting to the interior of the tree's lowest branches to keep them generating new wood- otherwise you get an unproductive and unattractive doughnut affect where lowest branches only have growth and peaches on their outer reaches. Summer pruning is helpful if not downright necessary to accomplish this where enough of the new growth in the top is removed to keep good sun reaching all of the lower branches of the tree.
mrsg47
11 years ago
I have had my first peach tree going on four years now. It produced many peaches last summer and it is trained in the open 'vase' shape. The leaves of the peach tree are really quite large and cover many of the peaches so the sun cannot reach them to help them ripen. I even removed a number of leaves this past summer to insure, high brix fruit. The 'Elberta' peaches were incredibly sweet and juicy. I started pruning the three with an open center as of its second year. It did not harm the tree at all. Peaches seem to be very fast growing. Mrs. G
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"Feathers are the small branches with wide crotch angles on the nursery stock at planting. You need a nursery tree with 10-12 feathers at planting. At least if you want the early production needed for early payback. Hangers and risers are branches hanging down or growing up from a scafold. At least that's my understanding." Just as our fruitnut said. 'nut, a tree that is ten feet across, or even eight feet across is not that narrow. At least not to me. And yes, when you remove a scaffold you cut it back to a one or two inch stub so that it will send out a new shoot that will become a scaffold. Scaffolds come off the CL at a hoped for right angle. Leaving that stub is the hardest thing for a pruner to do. They all want to cut it off entirely. Even after doing it for a day or two they will revert. You want all of these scaffolds as they are not long and the ones in the top are short, maybe not more than a foot long. So not much shade. I do almost no pruning until the tree starts to bear. But some tying down would be good. glib, I grow Gingergold, Pinklady, Rome. This method is not used on the Rome. Actually all three of those are tip bearers and I prefer plain CL on them. I did grow Fuji using this method and have since 1982 or 85? Just pulling out the last of the Fuji. I have always called this method the French Axe. It works very well on Gala or Golden or Jonagold or anything that isn't an extreme tip bearer. IMHO I don't have curculio or maggot. Or chickens for that matter. Reading these posts I know that my growing conditions are much easier than those of you who grow back east. I do have neighbors, however.
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I have done summer pruning for 2 years now and I really believe it is the best way to maintain trees to the height that I want, which no higher than 8 feet. I don't want to stand on a ladder to pick fruit. I still do winter pruning as well but it is a breeze now. No more need to break out the lobing shears. I got the idea from a man at Dave Wilsons Nursery. It really controls the vigour of the tree and with that you use less water because there is not as much foliage. And obviously you spray less because it is a smaller tree. Pruning when there is fruit on the tree works very well because there is no guess work on were the branch/tree is fruitful. It is a great way to thin fruit as well. So in reality I prune three times a year. I've got 30 trees and I takes me a good morning to do all of them. I wish roses were that easy. :) BTW, I see tiny pink tips on my cherry trees...Springs coming!
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There is nothing wrong with starting with extra branches as far as I'm concerned. I've seen research that shows that trees with temporary branches left low on the trunk create a more tapered and stronger tree- not that this is necessarily relevant to peaches. I've never seen any research that shows that reducing a tree to only your permanent branches immediately speeds development to that form. I believe you want to harvest as much light as possible until light is being shaded from wanted by unwanted branches. That's how I manage all fruit varieties in my nursery. Of course, that doesn't mean it's necessarily the best way. Love to see some actual specific research comparing the use of temporary branches to leaving only your permanents from the get go. I've read in pretty reliable sources that for free standing apples it's better to leave extra branches until trees come into bearing. They grow faster and come into meaningful production sooner this way- at least most varieties. Personally I like to start peach trees off as a central leader and convert it to open center the second or third year of productivity. This allows me to use the leader as an anchor for branch spreaders and also to pull up young branches with string that are overly heavy with fruit.
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you know what the moral of this story is....' there is really never any hurry to deal with a tree ... think about it.. watch it ... but you can always come back later and take care of it ... but you cant staple them back on.. if you make a bad decision ... and really .. 90% of the time.. the tree can take care of itself .... my only goal.. BESIDES DAMAGE REPAIR ... is lifting the canopy high enough that i can walk under them.. w/o having my hat or glasses knocked off .... there is no tree ... that can not.. sort itself out.. and re-establish a leader ... ken
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bob_z6
11 years ago
Do the peaches themselves need direct sun to be sweeter, or just direct sun to the leaves which are close to the fruit and can thus "feed" the fruit? I had thought that they need sun to color (turn red), but that it was the leaves close to the fruit which make it sweet. If so, then removing leaves to ensure that the fruit colors would actually reduce their brix, unless you are removing leaves from another branch which was shading the branch with the peach in question.

I suppose one good test would be to bag the fruit in a opaque bag, preventing it from coloring. A transparent bag could be used as a control, with the brix being compared at harvest.
alan haigh
11 years ago
The leaves on the shoot holding the peaches won't generally excessively block light from reaching the peaches themselves, which is helpful for more reasons than just getting color- the sun also fights fungal disease. Most of the sugars are manufactured by nearby leaves although there is chlorophyll in the fruit also.

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