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Hello, I'm Jody Gale, extension agent with Utah State
University Extension Service.
And I thank you for joining us in this continuing series
of Pruning in the Home Orchard.
I'd like to demonstrate how to begin
to develop the structure on a one-year-old peach tree.
This tree was probably grown for a couple of years
in the nursery during its production stage,
was purchased and planted last spring.
The new growth is represented by this very
vigorous, burgundy and green colored growth.
And so you can see we have a lot of very healthy growth
on the tree.
It's important to train the main scaffold branches
the first few years of the life of the peach tree.
Scaffold branches are represented
by the branches in this area.
You want to develop your first tier
branches somewhere around 18 to 24 inches above the ground.
In the case of peach trees, one of the arts of peach trees
is in many commercial peach growers
will have an open center tree.
If this tree was going to be trained to open center,
you would very literally cut away the center leader,
forcing only about three branches to go out
in different directions.
However, in a homeowner situation and in smaller yards,
I'm choosing to train this one to a modified central leader.
A modified central leader consists
of first tier branches, approximately 18 to 24 inches
off the ground, another tier of branches,
approximately 6 feet or so off the ground.
And at that point, unlike an apple tree,
you would cut off the center leader
so that the leader would not continue to grow up.
So this tree is still only really about 5 feet or so high.
This second tier will be a pruning job for next year.
So we're going to develop this so that it's
going to continue this center leader growth,
whereas will remove a lot of this growth
in the middle to try and force the growth to make these
into a scaffold branches down low.
Notice that there's a few branches that
have been trimmed a little bit coming out of the graft
union on this peach tree.
This area here represents the rootstock.
This is where the desirable peach variety
was grafted on at the nursery a few years ago,
making this small crook.
This tissue, or these limbs, are starting out at the very base.
This should be trimmed away.
Coming up, this is a pretty good developing scaffold branch.
The way to do is anything that's growing very vertical,
you prune off, and you want to try and develop
the limbs on a 30 degree angle.
So we're going to select this particular part of the limb--
this is a previous year's growth--
removing the other growth on the side,
forcing that limb to grow out.
So this is a nice developing scaffold branch.
This particular scaffold branch has
a little bit of a narrow crotch angle,
but it's a nice vigorous growth.
This can very easily be spread by a small piece of wood
with a very small finish nail in the end,
propping that down, such as this angle.
They do make some plastic type spreaders
that have a fork on the end.
Those can be used, but they frequently
do not stay in the tree when the wind blows.
So here we have one scaffold branch,
a second scaffold branch.
It's desirable to try and get branches
going in all directions, so I'll prune this one off.
This is a possibility of a scaffold branch coming out
to the side.
You don't want to take off all of your possibilities,
because one of these branches may be damaged in some manner.
There may be some very cold temperatures,
so you do want to leave some potential
for other possibilities or other choices
where you would prune them away, perhaps, another season.
Once you get up in this upper area
that you began to prune away, the other material
will tend to force the scaffold branches down lower.
This particular branch is quite vigorous,
even though it's much higher on the tree than I would prefer.
This tree is bare on this side.
We don't have a scaffold branch coming out,
so we're going to try and train this particular one
to be a scaffold branch that would come out on this side,
selecting anything that's vertical,
forcing the growth out.
And we'll leave these two small side branches on
to see what develops this particular season.
Vertical wood comes off.
This one is going a little bit too horizontal,
almost downward.
This is a more desirable variety.
And then will make a heading cut out here
to force this to branch and to bring the direction
of the limb this way.
Just remember that by pruning, you very literally
get the opportunity to choose which direction that limb
is going to grow.
By choosing this but on the underneath side of the limb,
on the very tip, this bud will likely become the new bud
and will continue the direction of the limb growing
in this manner.
It's important to make the trimming cut, forcing the bud
to go a little bit down or a little bit sideways,
instead of vertical.
Another place that can be seen as on this branch here.
Here we have the terminal bud that
will grow more up as that limb continues,
whereas we have this bud that will be more out.
So by making this trim here, this will force the branch
on more of a 30 degree angle.
Continuing on up the tree, we'll prune away
these very narrow crotch angles, which are very weak
and will not develop into good scaffold branches.
We'll trim those away, discard those, and try and develop
branches in the upper part.
This one is a little bit crooked,
but this has very much the potential
to become the new center leader.
I'm going to choose this bird on the top of the branch
in this case, which will continue a very
vertical growth.
Where this is a very young tree, you
don't want to make a stick out of it,
so I will allow this layer of limbs
to grow this year by making this heading cut here.
This will force branches at about this 6 foot
level, which I would like.
Next year, we're hoping for our scaffold branches to form here.
And after that, then these limbs here would be trimmed away.
Remember, the peaches only bare on wood
that grew the previous year, unlike apples
and many other fruits.
Apples only grow on two year and older wood.
So it's important to trim peach trees very heavily every year.
But in the early life of this young peach tree,
you want to concentrate on developing the tree structure.
There's a few buds here that will have the potential
to become peaches.
I'm going to pick those off, because you do not
want to develop peaches on a tree the first three
years of its life.
You want to concentrate on growing just the limbs and just
the structure.
After you have a pretty good structure developed,
then it's OK to begin and allow the peach to produce
those very nice peaches.
I don't know about you, but I love vanilla ice cream
and peaches, and I'm looking forward
to that from this young peach tree.
Thank you for joining us in this segment on Pruning
in the Home Orchard.
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