dormant pruning soon ?'s

17 years ago

snow is melting and in 2 -3 weeks i should be dormant pruning.

i have a plan for almost all my trees but have a few that baffle me.

i have 2 apples i planted last spring that basically have 3 central leaders in the shape of a trident. the central leader appears to have been pruned by the nursery and the result was one branch shoots out and away from the leader with another on the opposite side to match. the 3rd comes from about 5 iches out on 1 branch a branch has sprouted straight up. all are about the same height. what should i do ?

also a moose helped itself to another apple. the central leader was trimmed back to about 8 feet and all the scaffolds were completely eaten barr 1 branch at about 7 feet high and only 3 inches long. the tree almost snapped halfway before i made like a banshee and run that rascal off. there appears to be no buds below that 7 foot branch. what should i do to try and encourage more scaffolds at least down to 4 foot to start ?

i only have 1 branch to prune off my peaches thankfully. sould i do this in dormant season or wait until it is leafed out ?

thanks,

wildlifeman

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Comments (5)

tcstoehr
17 years ago
My experience with peaches is not to prune them when freezing weather is still expected. I'd wait until after that. I mostly summer-prune my peaches.
marknmt
17 years ago
I'm having trouble seeing what you're saying- can you provide photos?

Thanks,

M
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wildlifeman
Original Author
17 years ago
m,

sorry i was afraid of that. at the moment i can't get pics but can before i actually break out the pruners. be a great time for pics though, nice background of white.

i may be able to get creative and draw a pic on a whiteboard or piece of paper and take a pic of that.

tc,

thanks ! been reading a lot on pruning peaches and wanted a little bit of a concensus on gw. i'm just hesitant on summer pruning because between the deer and me following in the summer pruning the nibbles, i had lots of die back. the 2nd year trees ended up smaller than when i cut them back as whips when they were 1st planted.

wildlifeman
wildlifeman
Original Author
17 years ago
perhaps a better word to use instead of trident may be 3-pronged pitchfork. stick the handle in the ground and viola.

wildlife
Scott F Smith
17 years ago
Peaches can be pruned starting Feb around here. See below for Virginia guide stating such. I am going to start soon on my peach pruning. I like to get the pruning out of the way as early as I can so I can have the time for spraying grafting etc later when things are busier.

With the trident I would prune all three to around 1' long (sounds like the middle one is already below that length). The tree will branch out better this coming year.

With the moose-eaten apple it sounds like you may need to start over on the scaffolds. Top it at 4'. It will shoot out several limbs; prune out any extras early on and try to direct them more horizontally and get a vase shape. Or let only one grow and make a new central leader.

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: VT peach pruning