peach trees pruned
 

I finally did it. After six years of not being able to prune my peach trees because I didn't want to hurt them or do something to the harvest, I went out today and took out almost 1/3 of the volume of limbs.

They began producing the second year after they were planted and gave up bushels of peaches the last two years. So, I guess we will see this year what pruning does.

I have always pruned mine. Peaches will send out too many limbs and the foliage will become too dense. They will also get too tall for picking. My two trees are getting a little too old for good production with one of them being 30 years old and the other over 15 years but the dogs love the shade they provide so I am not going to replace them.

Down here the biggest thing affecting production besides diseases is whether or not we got enough cold weather during the winter. This summer I expect to see very few peaches because of the warm winter; but last year with a longer and colder winter the peaches were loaded. As a matter of fact my older tree had more fruit than anytime in the past 10 years.

I prune my two trees about every second year, as I am too lazy to do it yearly. They fruit on second year wood, so this year will be a "lean" year, as I pruned/cut them way back last fall. What that really means is we will get a modest crop that we have half a chance of actually consuming. Most years, even with [B]heavy, [/B]ongoing thinning, they break under the weight of all the fruit (and I prop up the branches). Everyone I know and can talk into taking fruit, gets some. Thank heavens the plum trees aren't so silly!