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09-05-2004, 02:03 AM

(Glenna Rose) writes:
writes:
I have a couple of semi dwarf peach trees which are 4 years old and
which are in bloom at the moment . Today I noticed a couple of small
dead branches on them which I missed pruning in late winter . Can I
prune them off now or is it too late in the season for this ? I heard
not to prune when trees are in bloom . Also there might be a very light
frost next week (down to 32 degrees ) Will this hurt the blossoms and
if yes what can I do about it ??
Please help !!
Rosie z5 in IN

I certainly am *not* an orchardist; however, it would make sense to not
prune when the trees are in bloom so as to *not* knock off blossoms.
Without blossoms, there is no fruit. (This is aside from the dormancy
issue.)

A very logical deduction, too. However, most fruit trees like peaches and
plums suffer from TOO MANY BLOSSOMS. The traditional winter pruning has
to be followed by a spring thinning, where much of the developing fruit
is pulled off the tree to allow the remainder to grow to a larger size. If
this is not done, then the tree may give you a thousand peaches no bigger
than a cherry. The winter pruning routine probably came about because it's
a time of year when the orchardist has nothing else to do. Trees can indeed
be pruned in early spring when they are in full bloom, just remember to
give right of way to the bees. A big advantage of spring pruning (quite
apart from avoiding the cracked lips, chillblains, and pneumonia) is that
while pruning you can knock/snip off excess blossoms, leaving just enough
that with your experience of expected pollination will allow a tree to bear
a desired load of fruit. For example, plum trees I prune may have up to 30
blossoms in a bunch where I want no more than 2 plums to hang and develop
to desirable size. So I just snip off about 20 of the flowers, and then
later in spring am left with many fewer fruit to thin off. Spring pruning
means that the tree has wasted energy in twigs and blooms that are going
to be cut off, but winter pruning means that the tree then wastes energy
in starting off lots of young fruit that are going to be pulled off in
the thinning process. So it's swings and roundabouts.

Nowadays, commercial orchardists apply sprays that cause chemical thinning,
it's less manpower intensive.
--
John Savage (news address invalid; keep news replies in newsgroup)