Mark:

Spreading the branches is more important to your little tree at this point than pruning, although if the tree is crowded, you can prune it any time. I prune my peach trees several times right through the summer to keep leafy growth from shading the peaches. Sunlight has to reach the fruits to make them size and color up and accumulate sugars. Heavily shaded peaches near the bottom of the tree will usually be small and scruffy.

Spreading branches is no doubt one of the differences you observed between your tree and those in commercial orchards. The more spread you get, the better the sunlight penetration. Your tree is still young enough to begin this process now, although the best time to install branch spreaders is in spring when the branches are more flexible. After you get the branches spread out, you can see what you have left in the center, and if it is shading the fruit, prune it out.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

remove that one lower branch, and center vertical leader, and train your tree into a "Y". Then you will be left with only two main scaffold branches on opposite sides of the tree. A 90 degree angle is perhaps too much, but 45 is too little. I use sixty degrees. You will have to tie these two scaffold branches to each other or one of them will split off. You should endeavor to cut off anything that erupts vertically from these two scaffolds, but in actuality that will prove impossible as much will erupt vertically and continually. That's alright, just keep them cut back enough so as to not shade fruit too much. You can and should keep the scaffolds from attaining a height of eight or so feet. Don't let any significant side branches develop from these two scaffolds. Trees can and should be about six feet apart from each other. If your tree blew over then stake it.
Do this and you have a tree that is, in the modern horticultural view, light years ahead of 90% of the trees and orchards you saw in your trips through the "Deep South". At least I believe so as I have never actually been there myself. My great-grandfather passed through there, though. He was a noted arsonist. Worked for a fella named Sherman.