jangchub wrote:

I know, but not all the new growth will be in the form of water spouts
and it will be the new shoots which will produce the fruit next year.
I have nothing to lose by trying this rehab project. The tree is
producing beautiful baseball sized fruits with rot. I may have to
wait two seasons to really reap the benefits of doing this hard prune,
but I truly believe it's the only thing I can do.

Why not wait until the tree goes dormant? You may have to trim off
most of the additional growth the tree puts out because it is not growing
in a favorable direction, that is straight up. Branches should go off at
an angle for best fruit production.



In the meanwhile, when the fruit trees go on sale in February I'll buy
some and plant them in other spots.

Try and buy a semi-dwarf peach tree, or even a full dwarf for other fruits
like apples. Then you won't have to hack the hell out of them later.

Sherwin



On Sun, 15 Jul 2007 00:53:39 -0500, sherwindu
wrote:

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.