I know it's an old thread, but I came across it and felt I could add something for other people wondering the same thing. Wow, so ok, this thread is... very interesting? Went from somewhat helpful to nursery bashing lol. There are four ways to control vigor/ size in a tree: Precocity, spacing, dwarfing rootstocks, and pruning out large branches. You can plant them 2ft apart in the row and 8ft alleys as a spindle if you want, or 20 ft apart as an open vase if you want (hint: the spindle is going to yield more than the vase per acre). The biggest thing to maximizing yields is maximizing bearing surface and light interception per acre. I use dual-leader UFO (upright fruiting offshoot) training for everything now. UFO was originally developed for spur-fruiting species (apples, plums, pears, cherries), but it can be modified to work with tip and year-old-growth bearing species (some apples, peaches, apricots). You just have to space out your uprights more and allow for limited lateral branching. For peaches, I plant trees 8 feet apart in row, with 7ft alleys (I use a TYM 234 tractor). I plant the trees at roughly a 45 degree angle. I allow the uprights on the primary leader to grow (keep terminal bud upright), and select one below the bottom cordon to train as the second leader. I then remove the other buds below the bottom wire. By the end of 1st leaf, you should have both leaders tied to the wire, and mostly filled the space between trees, you've pruned off the pendant shoots, and you should have some fruiting wood for next year. In the winter, tip back the fruit sticks and eliminate damaged/crowded wood. second leaf- limited fruiting possible, focus on establishing your uprights roughly every 10 inches (6 inches for spur bearing species) and finish filling in the space. Eliminate pendant wood, shoots sticking outside of the vertical plane, and any uprights beyond your "permanent" ones in late summer, after any harvest (limited regrowth that way). Next year's fruiting wood is now on the upright shoots. Tip back the fruit sticks and eliminate damaged/crowded fruiting wood. Third Leaf- should definitely get fruit, goal is to get your upright shoots to the top wire (which for a should be roughly 75% of your alley width, IMO). Same kind of pruning as previous years. At some point, your laterals are going to start to grow together, at that point, you need to do renewal pruning in the winter back to a bud near the upright. Once your uprights get to about 1.25x your alley width, head the uprights back to on bud above the top wire (otherwise you'll shade the bottom of the next row). As uprights approach 3/4 to 1 inch diameter at the base, take the largest one every year down to one bud above the leader (unlike apples and cherries, peaches don't regenerate as readily, so you need to give it the best chance). All renewal type pruning should be done before budbreak, to encourage vigorous regrowth.

Would someone mind sharing if there is a way to get my flf back to the condition that it was in when I first brought it home? For the most part its been doing well, does not appear to be growing. When reduced to its elemental form, elevating your tree to a higher state of vitality is going to be a function of how good you are at providing cultural conditions in the plant's sweet spot, instead of close to or beyond the limits it's (genetically) programmed to tolerate. So, it can be done fairly easily, but you'll need to make some adjustments if the decline is to be reversed. If a plant is truly not growing, it is not making more energy than it's using, and that's a bad place to be ..... for a plant. When I brought it home in September it was much fuller near the base of each secondary branch. I have a good handle on watering and it is in a well draining mix from a greenhouse. When it was deemed time to water I would do so and then within a day or two it would drop a few leaves. This trend continued until I started adding foliage pro to each watering. I’m really annoyed by that because I was assured that the tree had plenty of fertilizer in the pot, I can even see the little green balls all over in the growing medium. I am thinking that I could have avoided it losing the ~30 leave it lost slowly after each watering before introducing foliage pro, back in December. Since using foliage pro I have had zero leaves drop. Some nutrients, like nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, and magnesium are mobile in the plant. That is to say the plant can "steal" these nutrients from existing foliage and move it to where it's needed to support branch extension and growth of new leaves. Other nutrients, like calcium and several micronutrients are regarded as immobile in tissues and must be in the nutrient stream at all times in order for normal growth to occur. If the FP fertilizer curbed leaf loss, it's a good bet the leaves were being exploited for their nutrients and other bio-compounds prior to being shed. I would like to know the best time and if someone could also give me an idea on where to make the cuts for the hard prune that would be great too. I live in Chicago and all posts I’ve read say that late June would be best for a hard prune. I’m willing to do a hard prune, I’m excited to do it and see the rewards. I just need more information on how to do it properly. Good to see you come pre-armed with some knowledge of how to work with the plant's natural rhythms in order to help the plant recover faster from any extensive work you might do - primarily repotting and hard pruning. I think we're gradually changing minds with regard to the idea that a plant's foliage is sacred and not to be cut off under any circumstances. Growth is often viewed as so special that the plants appearance is sacrificed on its altar. I would do the pruning around Father's Day/ Summer Solstice. As soon as the plant starts to back-bud - you can repot (if it needs it, and it probably does). The pruning will be really easy and possibly done in 2 stages, depending on how close to the trunk the foliage is on each branch. Why not send a set of 4 images of the tree, rotating the tree 90* for each subsequent image in early June. Basically, you'll choose the leader, then prune all second order branches back to 1 or 2 leaves. The leader will be one node higher than the second order branches. A hard pruning represents a setback for the plant because you're removing growth that's been paid for. Living in CHI, you'll want to let your tree grow wild (unpruned or pinched) from Sep 1 to at least Jun 1. Then, pinch religiously from Jun 1 to Sep 1, such that when ANY branch shows a 3rd leaf that's open and moving toward maturity, pinch that branch back to 2 leaves. Soon, you'll be removing branches to let light and air movement into the canopy because it's too full. I have to do that to ALL of my trees older than a couple of years for health and to slow growth. BTW - your tree appears to have a very good basic structure to build on - so, good choice. Al

Personally I go "open center" with mine for purposes of light penetration and air circulation and head them off at roughly 8'. If you haven't pruned them at all I would start with height control and then move on to clearing the centers and crisscrossing branches and so on.

Yes, one or two main trunks growing vertically and then train two (or four) laterals horizontally to your wire, (or what ever your support structure is)