Pruning Question

[Deleted]

I have a peach tree, about 15ft tall, which is very productive -- late, orange, freestone, grown from a pit.

I know the basic rules of pruning, but is there any good reason to sever a healthy branch, which would normally produce fruit, if left alone?

My parents had done this to a productive Johnny Appleseed tree, once, and it never regained it's vigor.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Sept 18, 2012 23:07:55 GMT -5 @degzing said:

I know the basic rules of pruning, but is there any good reason to sever a healthy branch, which would normally produce fruit, if left alone?

Prune it if it is too high to pick the fruit, or if it is in the way of the lawn mower, or if it would open up the tree so that you could get a ladder in to pick other branches, or if it's rubbing against the house, or interfering with another branch, etc... Around here, peaches are pruned to be at most 7 feet tall, so that they can be picked by a person standing on the ground without a ladder.

[steev]

Pruning should be done to suit the needs of the plant and your needs. It's up to you to balance these; the plant has no awareness of you. Do what serves your needs, knowing that denying the plant's needs does not do so.

[MikeH]

Sept 18, 2012 23:07:55 GMT -5 @degzing said:

is there any good reason to sever a healthy branch, which would normally produce fruit, if left alone?

Yes, if where it joins the tree is such that it might break there and might do major damage to the tree. Alternatively prop the branch up.

Take a look at where the fruit is forming. You'll find that it is on last year's wood. That means that without pruning you'll have more and more unproductive wood. Keep main branches but encourage water shoots (not the vertical ones) by pruning out branches that have already fruited. Peaches, which bear their fruit on 1-year-old twigs or shoots, need more pruning than other fruit trees, which bear mostly on spurs found on wood 2 or more years old.