A peach tree growing in your backyard can provide you and your family with years of delicious, homegrown fruit. As you care for your tree, it is important that you prune its branches regularly. Here are some instructions for pruning your peach tree to help boost your tree's fruit production, promote its health, and increase the amount of weight-bearing branches.
Increase Fruit Production
It's important to prune your peach tree each year to keep the tree's fruit production at a high level. Without pruning each year, your fruit tree will continue growing new branches, and this will lead to overcrowding and excess shade within the tree's branches. This in turn will result in a crowding out of the fruit-producing branches.
If you don't prune your peach tree each year, it will begin to only produce fruit on the top branches that receive full sunlight. For this reason, it is important to prune your tree so you remove branches from the center of the tree and above. This will give your tree's canopy the appearance of a wide-V when it is viewed from any side, similar in shape to an umbrella clothesline or the shape of your hand when you hold a peach upright. This shape keeps your tree open in its center, allowing sunlight to reach the majority of its branches and stimulating fruit growth for higher fruit production.
Inspect and learn to recognize new growth on your tree each spring so you can recognize the red color of the fruit-producing branches and the brown color of the non-fruit producing branches. As you prune the branches forming the wide-V formation of your peach tree, leave a majority of these red-colored branches in place.
Keep in mind that it is recommended that you remove approximately 40 percent of a tree's branches during each annual pruning. In addition to stimulating the tree for new branch growth to produce more fruit, pruning your peach tree will eliminate old and dead branches that can cause your tree to become diseased.
Maximize Tree Health Potential
It is not recommended to prune your peach tree in the winter when the temperature is cold, as this can cause parts of the tree to die, making it less tolerant to cold. Prune your tree when the blossom buds begin to show some of their pinkish color. This will be before your tree's leaves emerge, making it easier for you to see the overall shape of your tree as you prune it.
Prune any new growth and baby shoots, including new red branches, growing from the main trunk area and below. Trimming these new branches and ground shoots along the bottom area of the tree help the tree get adequate air circulation. This also helps you to look for, recognize, and treat your tree for any diseases growing around the tree's trunk. Trim off any gray-colored branches throughout your peach tree, as these branches are old and dead and can attract disease to the tree.
Remove Weak-Growth Branches
As you are trimming off branches from your tree and leaving others in place, consider the angle of growth for each branch that will remain on the tree. You should be leaving branches behind that are growing at an upward angle and not sideways or downward. Branches growing straight out to the side at a 90-degree angle or downward will not be able to hold up as much weight as a branch that is angled upward in a 45- to 50-degree angle. So, as you choose which branches to cut, remove any branches that are not angled upward.
Your peach tree's branches need as much strength as possible in their angle of growth. The reason for this is because as the tree's fruit grows and enlarges, the fruit's weight will increase, placing extra weight on each branch. A branch that is growing straight out horizontally is more likely to break off than one angled upward.
Use this information to prune your peach tree into a strong, healthy, high-capacity fruit-bearing tree. For more information or for help, consult a professional such as Pete & Ron's Tree Service.
