NickRose
Because your photo, Peach tree location behind solid fence this block a lot sun lite for the peach you need to do high pruning on this tree in corner of fence. If don't the corner be full tree hard to move around in that corner. If you shape tree higher you can walk under tree because no limbs this help spraying, pruning, picking and any future soil work under tree. You want tree to get all day sun are as much as possible. No peach tree is a shade cropper.
In your area spraying for leaf curl is almost a positive.
I would take every small limb low on tree off where 2 limbs go up I start selecting limbs to leave so tree spread outward up high.
Vase shape out for this tree because location.
All people that talk chat about open center on peach tree are nuts the wood of peach tree is not strong so open center shape brake limbs off. Vase shape is small opening to allow sun-lite into top tree.
In next 3 years you have cut off more wood than tree has to shape tree a Peach tree recover quickly any pruning done in same year as grew will recover.

I've grown peach that close to a fence without issues. Farther away would be better. A tree that size could probably be cut down lower and still put out new growth.

I hope this doesn't sound rude and I could easily be wrong. But that tree looks like an apple to me.

This post was edited by fruitnut on Sun, Mar 3, 13 at 14:53

Well the tag says its from Dave Wilson's Nursery and that it is a Frost Peach. The only time the tree does not get sun is in the early morning. Basically it gets full sun from noon until evening.

Nick:

On second thought I think you are right. The caliper looks small enough to safely cut back. Good luck!!

If the two lower smaller branches are too high and the tree is a one year tree and not a one year tree that then lived in a pot for a year (making it a 2 year tree) you can safely prune to the height you want permanent scaffolds to start. It could kill a 2 year old peach to do this as peaches sometimes fail to generate new wood from older bark.

I prefer to train peaches as central leaders until they are 3 or 4 years old but if you do this you may not get new wood lower than what's already there.

I just got trees from DWN they look curiously similar
mine are interspecifics
with those same incredibly narrow branches
fruitnuts an expert so listen to him
but I'm gonna try & train my branches out
my trees are quite a bit shorter
usually I head them back but I just pruned off the tiny branches
I have absolutely no idea what gator rider meant
will I one day have branches breaking? my peaches are all pruned open vase
but I have loads of humidity here & you don't

This post was edited by GreenOrchardMom on Sun, Mar 3, 13 at 19:03

This was a bareroot tree I bought a few days ago. So I can safely say its a 1 year tree. I just painted my apple trees and the peach tree today so tomorrow I will cut the peach tree tomorrow and hopefully get some nice scaffolds to pick from next year.

{{gwi:72310}}

{{gwi:72312}}

{{gwi:72314}}
Like I said tomorrow I will be cutting the peach.

That's a common way to treat a new peach but usually there are some lower branches to stub. they trained the tree high for you.

I still want to cut it so I can train it the way I want but I'm still thinking about it. The big question is that the way the tree is now, will it be a good baring tree 1,2,3 years from now.

If you want, you could chop the top two branches off, and the lower two could be trained more outward. I think you would be fine.
BTW Frost is a pretty yummy peach, if badly named. (To me "Frost" denotes a white peach, but this one is definitely a yellow peach.) Frost is supposed to be curl resistant, although mine is only moderately so. You might be able to get away without spraying, depending upon how bad it is in your neighborhood.

Carla in Sac

Training higher would help provide air circulation which is essential for natural resistance to peach leaf curl. Training it right against the fence is t he worse way to deal with this disease.