To prune or not prune.....that is the question?

Question

I planted a peach seed 2 months ago and now it has about 30 pea sized buds. Should I prune them off to allow the tree to grow stonger? Please help.

Answer 1

No! Allow a young tree to produce vegetative growth, then do selective pruning for extraneous, diseased and crossing over branches. In the initial growing stage, it needs all of its growth to produce food for itself to grow. Later, when it fruits (several years from now at the earliest), you can single out the best immature fruit and perform selective fruit removal, also. I've grown peach trees and they are relatively short-lived, producing for maybe 15 years or so before they tire out and usually succumb to the peach tree borer, indicated by jelly-like sacks along the bark and base of the tree. These can be staved off by judicious cleanup of the tree base and by using dormant-oil spray in early spring. Good luck!

Answer 2

Pruning Young Fruiting Trees
The objective of pruning peach trees for the first three years is primarily to grow a tree that has a strong structure capable of supporting heavy future crops. As the trees fill their allotted spaces during years 4, 5, and 6, the orchardist must encourage a transition from vegetative growth to fruit production.
After three growing seasons, a well-trained peach tree should have 3 to 5 scaffold branches with wide angles, evenly distributed around the tree. Young fruiting trees usually grow fairly vigorously and moderate corrective pruning is needed to keep their centers open and maintain the desired tree sizes. A spreading growth habit will be encouraged by the weight of fruit on the limbs and heavy pruning should not be necessary (Figure 8).

Summer pruning should be continued to eliminate vertical watersprouts and to tip upright scaffold limbs to outward growing secondary shoots (Figure 9 and Figure 10).

Remove large, branched upright watersprouts. These shoots may be 4 to 7 feet long; they are not very fruitful, and they shade the tree center. Do not head these shoots to a side shoot with flower buds because several vigorous shoots will emerge and continue to create a vigor problem. Completely remove vigorous upright shoots that have secondary branches. Retain nonbranched shoots that have flower buds. The weight of fruit will pull these shoots down and suppress their vigor.

Do not remove all fruiting shoots in the center of the tree. The most productive open-center trees are those with fruiting wood throughout the tree canopy. It is fairly easy to maintain fruiting wood inside the tree; but, once it is lost, it is difficult to re-establish. Where there is an excess of branches, remove some to permit light to reach the tree center. However, maintain a supply of shoots that have strong flower buds. A properly trained peach tree will produce 50 to 70 pounds of fruit during the fourth and fifth seasons (Figure 9).

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

You need to pick a leader (and maybe a second leader in case the first one fails) and rub off any buds that don't support that choice.

Answer 4

I would leave them alone. While establishing the plant it is not wise to prune it. It may kill it.

Answer 5

NOT YET