On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 11:01:09 -0500, "cat daddy"
wrote:

An article in the Statesman yesterday about the impact of the rain had
this:
"....says Bill Psencik of the Psencik Peach Farm in Fredericksburg

"The foliage on the trees is so dense that we will have to do a lot of
summer pruning to allow adequate sunlight to enter the inside of the canopy
of the trees," Psencik says. "This can have a great effect on the amount of
next year's peach crop."

So, apparently pruning in Summer is not a bad thing.

Yes, this is in line with my original thought to remove most of the
old wood which will no longer produce fruit and cut it back hard.
Summer pruning on fruit trees is very common.

Since the tree has given me brown rot for the last three years, and if
it doesn't get remedy I was going to remove it and plant another on
the other side of the property...well, I have nothing to lose. So, I
will follow my instinct and cut it back and prune heavily so new wood
will grow out for next years fruit. I made a mistake in my
terminology, peaches fruit on second year wood, meaning whatever new
wood grows this year, will be the shoots to produce fruit next year.
The shoots are from 18 to 24 inches long and those (generally red in
color) will be the shoots to produce next year.

I will also use a copper fungicide or something similar, but I will
not use pesticides. I don't kill. That's that.