Gabby:

You need to thin and thin hard, now! Some people will tell you that you should remove all the fruit. And on trees that young I won't argue otherwise. But you can leave a few if the trees are growing well.

You should take off so many fruit that there hardly seems any left. When the fruits get big, a few will still seem like a lot.

If you don't thin very hard you might set the trees back severely either with breakage or stunting.

Gabby,

Most peaches set about 80-90% more fruit than they can carry. If I didn't thin heavily, my peach trees would all be on the ground in one season (from broken branches). I generally try to thin to 1 peach per 12" of branch space. That means a 1 year old 24" shoot could carry 2 peaches.

Your trees must be very healthy to have such a large fruit set when planted only last fall. It helps that they are such large trees. My guess is they were also potted trees and you were careful not to disturb the roots?

I wouldn't be afraid to let the peach trees carry a heavy crop (spaced every 12") IF you have fertile soil and the trees are not unduly stressed. That means you need to have a grass/weed free zone around the base of the tree and the trees are neither drought-stressed or flood-stressed. If that's the case they should still be able to carry a full load and have plenty of vigor left over for new shoot growth without any future detriment to the tree.

The "Siamese twin" peaches you describe are called "doubles". They are caused by stress during bud formation (the previous summer). You can identify these doubles in the flowering stage. They will have two separate pistils inside one flower. The ovaries in both pistils are fertilized and grow together. Because of the way peaches develop, one fertilized ovary will not grow much (or in some cases die) while the other develops normally, giving the double fruit a sort of Siamese lopsided look.

Double peaches are fine to eat, if you can get them to harvest. The problem is as they get bigger, they tend to split at the connection and allow bugs and fungus to enter the fruit and rot it. Generally it's recommended you remove doubles at thinning time to avoid this problem.

Early in the season I have broken off the smaller side of double peaches (very carefully so as not to pull the peach off the tree) and the peach will generally heal up just fine at the break, leaving a small scar and a slightly uneven peach at harvest.

All my comments above refer to peaches only. Pears are much less vigorous than peaches. As such, they may be more susceptible to set back or runting, if cropped heavily at such an early age.

Peach trees are heavy nitrogen feeders. If you have ample nitrogen available to the tree and there is good growth there is no problem, make sure there is adequate moisture.

My Redhaven was planted last spring and there is fruit on it this year...not tons but there is also good growth.

Just don't expect very good fruit with all this water and nitrogen we're talking about here. Young really vigorous peaches probably aren't going to have very good fruit anyhow. But a young tree with poorly established roots is more likely to have poor fruit from being over stressed. At least that's my experience in my droughty soil and dry climate.

"Young really vigorous peaches probably aren't going to have very good fruit anyhow."

I think that depends on what you compare them to. If you compare them to a 29+ brix Honey Fire, then yeah you'll probably be disappointed. I'm sure Fruitnut you would be.

But heck, who besides you Fruitnut has tasted stuff like that. You said yourself you can't buy it, and I know of no one on this forum who raises a significant quantity of peaches and nects in a greenhouse in pots, except maybe you (I've no idea how many bushels of peaches/nects you produce.)

I'm not advocating she add N (unless her soil is marginal) and unless the vigor is just over the top, I think the peaches from this lady's tree will probably be some of the best she's ever eaten.

olpea:

Just expressing my opinion and not directed at you. We all do what we can with what we have.

I never would have thought I could get a 13 brix nectarine up to as high as 33 brix by cultural manipulation. Maybe nobody finds that interesting or informative but somebody probably learns something. If not at least I've learned something.

Thank you both so much for the info. We have really debated what to do. I will be thinning tomorrow for sure. They are such beautiful trees and their growth has been outstanding, I would not want to do anything that might stunt that for the years to come.

The pear in particular is already starting to show signs of the branches being drawn downward because of the heavy load, and the pears are only the size of a marble!!

Thanks and have a great week!!!

Gabby

"I never would have thought I could get a 13 brix nectarine up to as high as 33 brix by cultural manipulation. Maybe nobody finds that interesting or informative but somebody probably learns something. If not at least I've learned something."

I find it interesting as I expect most others do too. From my perspective, it's a kind of cutting edge frontier. I've never read of anyone doing quite what you're doing, but then I've never read of anyone being quite the brix fanatic you are (I'm smiling as a write.) Keep posting.

Gabby, let us know how it turns out.