What to do now?

15 years ago

So after raising my first peach tree up from a whip... and after tending to it for the last 4 years... and after training it in the traditional peach tree fashion (which I learned online) my tree finally bloomed and even set a single solitary fruit!

That's the good news. Here's the bad - it isn't a peach tree.

I've obviously never grown a peach tree or I would have noticed the differences in foliage. It wasnt until I got excited about my one little fruit and decided to buy a second tree with completely different foliage that I questioned it. So yeah...I now have an apple tree that I've trained into the shape of a peach tree. A very well cared for apple/peach tree I might add.

So my second problem, and the one I need advice on is this- do I cut down the apple tree (sniff) and replace it with a peach or do I try and retrain a mutilated apple tree that may never produce fruit due to my lack of another apple tree? (and with no room for any more) I hate to take out the little guy, but I dont see much hope for him. (plus I dont really care for apples) sigh....

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Comments (6)

jellyman
15 years ago
David:

First piece of advice: Don't buy your next peach tree where you bought the first one. That is, if you bought it, and it isn't the result of some kind of "trade".

Second, I have a whole orchard full of apple tree pruned and trained to open centers, very much like peach trees. They are very productive, and this shape keeps the fruit at a level that I can reach for thinning, picking, bagging, and/or spraying. I don't consider any of them to be "mutilated", which is a very strong term.

If there are other apple trees within a quarter mile or so, even decorative crabs, your apple tree will have no difficulty setting fruit. Apples are insect pollinated. However, you don't know what kind of apple you have, and it may not be a particularly good one. It may even be a crab with inedible apples. Time will tell.

So enough with the sniffing and sighing. If you have room for only one tree, and you like peaches but not apples, buy and plant a peach tree of a known variety from a reliable source.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA
tcstoehr
15 years ago
Don't get rid of the apple tree simply because you think it's been pruned wrong. An apple tree with a vase shape, even with just 3 or 4 scaffolds, works fine. Maybe not the best, but not bad at all. I'd be more tempted to get rid of it cuz I'd have no idea what variety it was, not to mention what rootstock. And if you don't like apples... and TX isn't the best place to grow apples... I'm just saying.
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davidpoling
Original Author
15 years ago
lol...too bad there isnt an SPCA for trees around here to adopt it out to. So even though I've pruned it to have an open center and completely cut off its main leader it should still produce fruit? I'm growing it back in my cut-flower area behind the shed so looks aren't as important as function. I had hundreds of blooms this year and only got one little fruit..and no, I have no idea what kind of apple it is yet. I was more worried that I hadnt trained it properly to take the weight of productive years in the future. As silly as I feel for not catching this sooner, I'd feel sillier if I continued to nurse a tree that was destined to fail.
tcstoehr
15 years ago
A vase shape will not prevent apples from producing. Personally, that's how I prefer to prune apples. Consider espalied apples for example... no leader... laterals only. Now, you still might want to consider other reasons for keeping or not keeping this tree. In particular, why only one fruit? Pollination issues? Winter too warm? I can't say.
athenainwi
15 years ago
I prune my apples to open center to make it easier to reach the fruit. My peach tree and my apple tree are pruned the exact same way. It doesn't hurt the tree and it isn't the wrong way to prune.

But since you don't really want an apple tree, I'd go ahead and get rid of it. Buy your new tree from a better place where you actually get what you pay for. Since you don't have much room there is no good reason to keep something that you don't really want and don't even know exactly what it is.
greenbean08_gw
15 years ago
There isn't an ASPCA but you could offer it on Freecycle or for free on Craigslist if you have those in your area. I've seen trees offered here before.

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