Fruit spurs are sometimes good for quite some yrs. But some of my plum and apricot spurs producing their third crop now, look like they are about done. Say this because they now have no leaves on the spur just bloom. Don't think a spur like that has much left. Will take some of that wood out. My trees, in general, will bloom profusely on one yr old wood. So only lose one yr production on any cut. Well worth making some big cuts in that case. So the answer to your question is that it can vary a lot. Some spurs might be good for five yrs. But generally fruit quality will begin to fall after 2-3 yrs of production on any particular spur. I'm not saying that fruit on a new spur will taste better than that from an old one. But new spur can produce larger fruit. So I'd rather have fewer larger fruit. A tree that has too large of a crop, not thinned enough, likely will have less sweet fruit. I much prefer a modest crop of large sweet fruit. This will be easier to produce on a heavily pruned tree with newer fruiting wood...and a smaller tree to boot. I think american plum can likely pollinate Santa Rosa. But not sure and it may vary depending on specific varieties involved. The Fruitnut

"The longest horizontal branch, or lateral, should not be allowed to grow longer than (1/6, 1/4, 1/3, 1/2?) the height of the tree." Mark, You could start a new thread if you wanted, but I think we are still w/in the scope of this one. In terms of scaffold length, I suppose it might depend on what type of tree you were pruning to determine whether or not to shorten scaffolds, and how compact you wanted to keep the tree. I don't try to keep my trees compact (just try to keep them low). From that paradigm, I was having a hard time understanding why someone would maintain scaffold length at some proportion of tree height. But I can see where this would apply for high density plantings, or dense backyard culture. For my own peach trees, I try to keep them at a height of 8' or shorter. I don't try to shorten the scaffolds at all. A lot of my 8' tall trees have scaffolds 10' long. However, it seems for the most part, the long scaffolds prune themselves in a way. What I mean is the ends of them get pulled down to the ground. Then sometime after harvest all the low branches get pruned (cause they are too close to the ground) so the low ends get chopped off with thinning cuts. The growth angling up doesn't get pruned (as long as it's not over 8' tall) but the next season it gets pulled down from the weight of fruit and again is pruned off after harvest. I hope I'm making sense. Maybe another way of saying it is that I try to prune peaches to make them like a rolodex. The growth comes out from the inside and lays down. The lower outside growth is pruned and new inside growth comes out and lays down again to replace it.

They soften off the tree, not sweeten. Santa Rosa will store well in fridge even when picked soft so why not get them as sweet as possible? To me that's what makes growing plums wonderful although Zeiger has come up with varieties that can be picked quite hard and still be sugar sweet. Apples can sweeten in storage because starches convert to sugar but this doesn't happen with stone fruit.

I think you are right, it was drought stressed before the roots were established in your native soil. I had a pear act like that when newly planted and not watered often enough. The defoliation was complete when water was again applied. It not only leafed out again it went through another bloom cycle in August! It is today a fine tree bearing lots of fruit. Al