cat daddy wrote:

Are you giving this advice as specific to peach trees in Central Texas,
or as a general rule of tree pruning?
I would think the commercial grower would not do anything to jeopardize
his current and future crop or orchard.

"sherwindu" wrote in message
...
Not sure where this summer pruning is taking place, but heavy pruning in
the
summer
encourages the tree to put out lot's of new growth, usually in the form of
water
sprouts that grow up vertically and our not desirable. Better to wait
until the
tree goes dormant in late fall or early winter.

Sherwin D.


cat daddy wrote:

"jangchub" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 13 Jul 2007 15:35:56 -0500, Victor Martinez
wrote:


I'd wait until February to prune them. Let the leaves produce energy
now.

I agree, but peaches set fruit on new wood. So, my line of thinking
was that if I cut out all the largest and oldest limbs I'd encourage
new growth. Then, in February prune it back into the scaffold I have
it pruned into now.

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.


I'm going to go take a look at Dromgool's peach orchard at the store.


My time frames may be off slightly if the original poster lives in Texas, but
the principal is still
the same. Light pruning is ok in the warmer months, but heavy pruning will just
encourage the
tree to put out more growth. As I mentioned, this new growth will not be of a
desirable nature.
Heavy pruning should be done when a fruit tree is either entering or already is
in a dormant state.

Sherwin D.