Mark-

I just let mine grow as much as possible...don't really shape it much. Try to bend branches laterally. I thin out the branches that don't have fruit since they are worthless to me. I figure up here peaches are year to year. Any given winter and they are toast. So the faster I get fruit, the better. I keep a constant supply of seedlings on hand in pots ready to plant should a tree die.

Speaking of fruit, do you have a lot of flowers? I have 2 trees in the front yard that are 3 years old and full of flowers about ready to pop. Both are seedlings i grew and I have no idea what to expect. I think they were Michigan fruit (Redhaven?). Whatever the case, I also have a huge peach in the backyard and I'm almost positive its a seedling California peach. Its probably 20ft tall and has a good sized trunk and I've looked it over and only a handful of flowers look to have made it. Should be interesting to see what grows.

{{gwi:105130}}

I intended to write that I had "not" pruned it.

It is full of bud eyes but I can't tell if I have any flower buds yet.

You are 100 miles north, but closer to the Mississippi your climate must be milder. We have also been very windy. We have been extraordinarily cold here this spring.

The branches at the bottom of this tree are above the graft. Are any of yours growing like a bush with multiple trunks coming up from near the base?

I am interested in your seedling approach. Are you growing from seed, or are can branches be rooted to keep them true to variety? If they are from seed, are you getting adequate fruit?

Ever try your hand at almonds?

No almonds

From seed. Peaches are like weeds. They grow so fast. I already see some in my vegetable low tunnel popping up through the soil (must have thrown some pits in the veggie bed last summer). I usually keep an eye out at the stores in the summer for Michigan fruit and then i look on the boxes to see variety (they usually have them stamped). I figure they grow in Michigan, they can grow here (at least more so then a California variety). They need to be stratified before they'll germinate.

Seedlings will branch very low...very low. Like at the base of the tree if you let them. Only problem is rabbits/voles will chew on them if you have them.

We take an annual vacation trip in the U.S. which is based on my daughter's national tumbling meet. We ended up in Michigan about 3 years ago while returning from her meet in Ohio. As I prepared for that trip I learned that peaches were grown commercially near Lake Michigan. I never knew that before. We stopped at an orchard.

Since you are just east of the Mississippi you might have some of the same climatic stabilizing factors, to a lesser degree, as Michigan.

We have rabbits, but they don't bother this tree. We tie our dog nearby, but rabbits would not recall where the dog is tied; they are dumb, and I presume they avoid it due to the mulch -- I plant peanuts in the mulch -- I figure the peanuts could help add nitrogen, but mostly I like peanuts and growing stuff.

You forgot to tell me --- what quality of fruit do you get from the seedlings grown from seed?

I had an apricot which turned out to be a peach, then winterkilled to below the graft. The rootstock was also peach and I left it for years, sometimes it had a lot of winterkill, other years not so bad. However as the tree got larger, the winterkill lessened. I assume it was the larger trunk plus we went through a period with milder than normal winters.

Anyway, I really never pruned the rootstock. Was so concerned about winterkill that I would wait until mid summer when everything had leafed out--many branches would look dead in late May after others were fullly leafed out, but then would gradually leaf out further and further up the branch. But, I would prune out only the truly dead branches and occasionally pruned out a few that were crossing. Otherwise, it just grew as it pleased.

The trunk was about 6" in diameter when it finally began blooming and set some fruit. It did this for 2 years, the fruit was an inedible peach, so I cut the tree down since it was crowding an apricot tree.

I guess my point is that I really didn't prune and just let it grow, and it seemed hardier as the trunk got bigger although that may have been due to a series of warmer winters also.

I don't think leaving those low branches will help keep the tree alive in severe weather- it will just create a multiple trunk tree with equal vulnerability but be harder to keep open enough to make great peaches.

You want an open center which can be realized by training as a central leader for several years- removing all branches more than half the diameter of the trunk at point of attachment then eventually choosing 3 or 4 permanent scaffold branches and removing the center.

Or you can choose your permanents scaffolds now and spread them. The higher you place your permanent scaffolds on the trunk the more horizontal they must be. Commercial growers usually start them very low and create a V shape- my trees are more a goblet form because I train them above the deer.

But the issue now is that I have about three branches coming up from near the bottom of the tree, and one of them is about half the width of the trunk. If I cut something that large out, do I risk killing the tree?