Hi all - my wife and I have been working on planting a small-ish home orchard since purchasing a new home with a few acres of space in 2013; hard to believe it has been almost five years!

My focus has been primarily on stone fruit, more specifically apricots, peaches, nectarines, and plums, the majority being successively ripening varieties of peach since peaches are a family favorite.

I'm sure many of you know first-hand the learning process has not been trivial, but it has also been tremendously rewarding and enjoyable.

In general, my approach has been to add several new varieties each year, allowing for loss to disease and/or animal damage- though I've learned to mitigate most of these issues through research, trial and error, and frankly, experience (though I would still categorize myself as a beginner).

I've said all this to make my way to a pruning related question:

One of the trees that I planted last year (reliance, I believe- has grown well for me here previous seasons- I am in zone 7A) has more than one "leader" growing from the graft point. The dominant branch, while strong and vigorous, has a fairly undesirable growth pattern, and lacks the sort of structure for primary scaffolds that I've learned to look for as I start training young trees. However, the second shoot, which is growing ever so slightly at an angle, has an amazing structure, and perfectly positioned scaffolds that, to me, could make it one of the best shaped trees in the orchard.

Hopefully, I've described things such that they're easy to visualize- just imagine a v-shaped leader growing from the point where the scion meets the root stock.

What I really want to do is favor the more desirable growth, prune out the one that is probably never going to be shaped well for long-term, and stake the remaining leader to straighten it up a bit- but it is one of the more dramatic pruning decisions I've made, and I'm wondering if this is an acceptable approach, if others have encountered similar circumstances, etc.

One concern that I do have is the possibility of stimulating aggressive growth at the base of the tree where I've made the cut- though this may not be a real issue- not sure.

Any thoughts, comments, suggestions?

Funny, I've cut more than 50% out of a peach tree to bring down the size considerably without killing the tree, or giving it much thought, but in this case I am uncertain! :-)

Thanks in advance.