I've been growing fruit trees for about 8 years. I've watched 100's of videos on pruning. Yours are the best. I appreciate your patience, guidance and descriptions. Have a great grow season!
Hey Shawn. I'm glad you're enjoying these and finding them useful. I (Duane) have a tendency to overshare which occasionally has it's benefits. Here's to a great growing season this year!
Hi neighbors, This is just the video I was looking for. We have 2 four year old Desert Gold and Red Barron trees we need to prune. We have never pruned them significantly in the past, so we need a direction where to start. Now we know. We're looking for overall long-term health of the tree and of course helping fruit production. Thanks for posting!
I sharpen my pruners and loppers every year before pruning and clean/disinfect them between each tree we prune to help mitigate any possibility of cross contamination. Great info, beautiful job pruning and I feel like a slacker because I can’t start pruning until next week and thank you for sharing.
Right there with you. We started a little earlier this year, so we could get these out there during the pruning season for everyone. What's been great is taking our time during the week in the evening and doing a tree or two right at sunset. Good call on those cuttings. We're going to do the same with figs, blackberries and mulberries this year. As you know, they tend to do really well when they've been used to your climate their entire lives!
Hey Jeff! We've been trying to time these as best we can for everyone here in AZ this year, so we're pruning everything a couple of weeks early. How is your property coming along?
Winter pruning is one of my favorite times in the orchard. Around half my trees still have some leaves though, one nectarine even pushed new growth lately. Gotta go strip em down like in your last video.
We really enjoy it as well. It's a part of the cycle and forces us to focus a bit on each individual tree. Plus, we end up seeing things we otherwise would miss...like the wood pecker that has been chewing up the bark on some of the apple and apricot trees! New growth on a nectarine this time of year is unusual. Is it a young tree?
Can you show how you do bird nets and from qhat material? Birds destroy all of our fruit in tucson and we have the hardest time trying to come up with a good fix
We'll be sure to show what we do, but the netting we use can be found on Amazon. I'll link the one we use for you here; amzn.to/3tML3qP Now, we also use organza bags on the smaller fruit or on trees that grow rapidly. Those can also be found in our Amazon shop.
Very nice video, specially for beginners! One thing I would add, is to head one year old wood to 1.5-2’, which will allow those branches to grow thicker and stronger (more capable of carrying fruit load), will reduce the need for fruit thinning in the spring and will stimulate new branch growth, i.e. new fruiting wood for next year.
@@chulasexychica11 Heading means performing a pruning cut somewhere along the length of a branch, as opposed to completely removing the branch (which is called thinning cut). My recommendation above is to cut one year old wood in its “middle” leaving about ~1.5’ of it attached to the tree.
It truly is a work of art and no one will do theirs exactly the same way. So its unique to each grower :) And youre right…if you dont thin the varieties now that overly produce…youll be in trouble later and itll be more emotionally hard to throw physical fruit away then dormant wood now.
Very well put Eric. Lori and I were talking about this yesterday and she's gone from cringing every time I make a pruning cut, to helping me decide which large branches need to go!
Hey Jordan! Glad you enjoyed this one. We have several more pruning videos coming up over the next few weeks. We're trying to cover as many different types of trees as we can.
Hey Martin. Lori and I were just talking about this yesterday. She used to cringe whenever I made big cuts or took a tree down a notch. Now she's in there helping me decide which cuts to make, knowing the tree will respond with more growth and production.
You should buy commercial grade bypass loppers and hand clippers. The cut quality is much better and they last for ever! I believe the brand i have is Phoenix loppers, Carrona hand pruners and silky ultra thin curf hook saw. Artistic Arborist in N.PHX. but any Arborist supply store will have the good brands.
Hey Jesse. Thanks for the suggestions. I've heard of the silky saws before. One of my mentors when it comes to pruning apple trees used that saw for nearly all of his pruning cuts with the exception of the smallest of branches. I wasn't aware of Phoenix loppers, but Corona is my go to for hand pruners.
Oh cool! We're looking forward to seeing how they put everything together. It's funny, because they were here last April, so the farm has grown in a lot since then!
It's been my understanding for peach trees is that you get better fruit when the tree isn't overly burdened with branches that will take away nutrients from the fruit. Most of the branches you cut back were ones that I thought should go, but I really don't have experience with pruning peach trees, just feedback from people that do have the experience. I was curious as to how you went about pruning your peach trees. I had never heard about the open center, but it makes sense that it would help the tree to breathe better, and that is definitely what everything needs! Thanks for leaving the link for this video for me to watch. My neighbors have peach trees around their trailers, and I tried to tell them they would get better fruit if they thinned their trees out, but they seem to half hazardly cut away on their trees with no real purpose. I don't say anything anymore; because they obviously brushed me off when I made mention about thinning their trees. They have them so close to their trailer that they worry more about cutting it back so they don't rub against it lol. This video was very helpful! I've been working with my lawn for about 5 going on 6 years now trying to increase the health of my soil. Oklahoma has a lot of sandy dirt, so I have hauled in top soil with 25% mulch mixed in where I needed to raise my ground, and I have added so many things to enrich the soils I have. I even planted some Bermuda seed this spring, which is growing up so well. I added some grass food and put a thin layer of Peat Moss over the top and watered a couple of times a day, and for the last couple of week, we have gotten a lot of rain. It was so much at one point that I was hoping that it didn't wash out. It's over an inch tall now; some of the existing grass needs to be trimmed down, which I'm going to do that, but it's going to be tall enough it wont bother the new grass at this point. I'm really happy with that. I'm hoping to buy a couple hundred acres in my old age and do a small percentage of what you are doing with your wife. Anyway, this was a super good video, thanks for sharing it!
Ok, I wasn't sure where you were located. I imagine Oklahoma looks quite a bit different from what you're seeing here! Our escapades with grass are a bit different as we're focusing on growing forage for the chickens, but it's always a challenge to get enough nutrient in the soil for optimal growth. For us we use broiler chickens that put a heavy manure load on the ground twice a year and it seems to do wonders for us. Oh and your plan for that couple hundred acres sounds solid!
Hey Maria, glad you enjoyed this one. I'll link to a video here where we discuss what and why we have that paint on there; th-cam.com/video/WVh_IqHbXs0/w-d-xo.html
grab a video of the same tree when fruited and add this to show its whole process from origional before pruning after pruned and next growrth to show what you got/get for the effort
Not yet, but we have plans for at least 1 at the back of the property. We have a natural slope from North to South, so it will be on the South side to keep water flow before it leaves the property. It will also deep water our pecan trees which need that. We will also be installing swales between our mulberry trees at the South end to do the same. Mini swales are already in place for roof catchment around our vineyard garden and berry areas as well as around each tree. Lots of work still to go!
What do you think of the idea of a strong center branch for fruit trees? I just saw a presentation of an arborist advocating for this style of pruning.
We've found the open center to be very beneficial, especially when it comes to ripening fruit on the inside of the tree/canopy. It's also an important consideration if you're in an area with higher humidity as this can lessen the opportunity for disease by opening up air flow into the center of the tree. Lastly, an open center naturally lends to a smaller tree height which aids in harvesting and helps to keep aggressively growing trees in check.
Hey Larry, glad you're enjoying the content. We have not tried Babcock peaches before. I know many folks have them around town, but it's not one of the 3 varieties we've settled on. Those are FlordaPrince, Early Amber and Earli Grande.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm What about Saturn peaches? Did you not plant those on your new farm? I was thinking on planting one here but couldn’t help notice that you didn’t mention that variety here.
@@larrypollman5243 ah yes, we did try Saturn peaches on the old farm. The tree fruited well after a couple of years, but we couldn't get the fruit to ripening with the heavy bird pressure and tree growth stunting we usually see at that time of year. From what I recall they ripened very late for us. July timeframe if I'm not mistaken. With that we decided to skip them on this property, but I think they would definitely be worth trying if you're up for it. Very cool fruit!
Thank you for your videos! Been following along for a while now. I have a couple stone fruits going into their first winter. Unfortunately my heading cuts did not produce the best scaffold branches (short, poorly spaced, or too upright). Should I head again this winter?
Hey Andrew. This is always tough without being able to see the branching. You mentioned short, so if you have a branch that is at a good angle you can always see if the tree will put out additional growth on the same branch. If so, you can make the cut just above/beyond a bud that is facing away from the center of the tree to encourage branching from that spot. We always wind up trying to fix spacing issues in year 2 (much like you're seeing in this one) when the tree has had time to establish a strong root base. This way you can be more aggressive with pruning cuts knowing the tree will be able to respond when new growth is pushed out in Spring. The key with all of this is how aggressive the tree is growing. How much growth did you get out of it this year?
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm thank you for the advice! There was not a lot of growth on either tree (an aprium and peach). I believe largely due to their being slow to break dormancy. The peach has many short branches, less than a foot long. The aprium had more growth but with poor spacing and angles of branches (too vertical)
@@andrewhiemstra6056 ah, ok. I would probably just take off any branches that are crossing or dead and leave these trees to grow strong in the next growing season. Then you can come back and start shaping the tree.
IDK how old that paint is but impressive growth with that splitting 5:45 I paint before April 1st & again before October 1st b/c that's when I think the most scald happens. Seems like you could add double the trees where a wall-row might help shade during the hottest 90 days of summer. Too bad there isn't a solar-panel program that can calculate if the rounded-surface area of spaced-trees differs from a wall-of-trees. If you need a video idea you might try using fog & showing your cold-air-drainage. My mosquito fogger has shown me my cold-air drainage on certain days. IDK if Dry ice would do it but it might be the cheapest fog.
Good catch on that paint splitting. I think we painted that early summer, so that's mainly Fall flush that you're seeing there which can be pretty strong for us. We definitely could have added more trees, but our irrigation setup is such that we're maxed out with our well capacity. Now I'm off to figure out cold air drainage!
I know this is a peach tree video but are apples fairly the same? I have an Anna and a tropic sweet I purchased from Reed and they are doing amazing! Thanks for all of your amazing videos
Hey there Adriana. Apples are very similar. We have an apple pruning video we just wrapped up and should have posted this weekend that will show what we're doing with our apple trees at 1 year old...from Reid also of course!
I know just how you feel. We're many years into this, so pruning is almost second nature at this point, but that wasn't always the case! The key to all of this is the vigor of the tree. Our trees grow several feet in a year, so you can be a bit more aggressive with trees like that. Also, these are still young trees that we're shaping for future production. Once they're established we won't be quite as aggressive.
I’m very new at growing and one of two peach trees I have planted came from a flower pot ( which was doing great full of leaves) and now several weeks later seems to be dead. The other one has nothing on the upper limbs, only suckers at the bottom. I don’t know where to go from here.
There could be several things happening here. You didn't mention where you're located, but we are heading into the dormant season in the Phoenix area and most of the country is in full Fall mode. Peaches are deciduous, so they naturally drop all of their leaves in the Fall. Transplanting also causes stress on a tree which can lead to leaf drop. Be sure to remove those suckers. They are only making the stress on the tree worse. Lastly, give the trunk (above the graft point) a small scratch test to see if it's green just below the bark. If so, it's still alive which is a good sign. Beyond that, the only thing you can really do now is wait for Spring and see how it does. Hopefully it comes back nice and strong with those first flowers.
Glad you enjoyed this one. We haven't used it in the past and don't plan on doing so this year, however we will probably start a Winter spraying regimen next year. There really isn't a downside to applying them as long as it's applied to the tree and not the soil underneath.
Great question Barb! We actually have 3 primary cash crops planned for our fruit trees. Peaches, apples and mulberries. Apples mainly because they're unique here in the desert. Peaches and mulberries because picking them ripe from a tree is the ONLY way to eat them!
It depends on the age and size of the tree. If it's an established tree you may need to do that in stages, starting with removing center branching and moving down over a few years. The general rule of thumb is to only remove about 30% of existing branch mass in any given pruning season. We have very aggressively growing trees here on the farm, so we can push that number a little higher, but we usually stick to that as well.
Thanks, this is one of the best peach tree pruning tutorials I’ve seen. Well prepared, good sample tree and very good reasoning.
Glad you enjoyed this one and found it useful!
I've been growing fruit trees for about 8 years. I've watched 100's of videos on pruning. Yours are the best. I appreciate your patience, guidance and descriptions. Have a great grow season!
Hey Shawn. I'm glad you're enjoying these and finding them useful. I (Duane) have a tendency to overshare which occasionally has it's benefits. Here's to a great growing season this year!
Hi neighbors, This is just the video I was looking for. We have 2 four year old Desert Gold and Red Barron trees we need to prune. We have never pruned them significantly in the past, so we need a direction where to start. Now we know. We're looking for overall long-term health of the tree and of course helping fruit production. Thanks for posting!
Cool, glad this was good timing. We started pruning a bit earlier this year, so we could get these out while everyone was needing to get this done!
Thanks!
Roger, really appreciate that tip. Thank you!
This is a really good video. Both in it's own merit and also in comparison to the other peach pruning videos. Thank you very much.
Glad you found this one useful David.
Excellent video. Cutting like Universe umbrella
Exactly Abid! Now we're hopeful for a great harvest this Spring!
I sharpen my pruners and loppers every year before pruning and clean/disinfect them between each tree we prune to help mitigate any possibility of cross contamination. Great info, beautiful job pruning and I feel like a slacker because I can’t start pruning until next week and thank you for sharing.
I wish I could say we're as diligent about disinfecting them as you are. Critical step there for sure.
Very helpful information. Thanks
Glad you found this one useful Dan!
Great video, will for sure do some pruning of my peach tree this month and prepare it for the next harvest.
It's definitely getting to be that time of year!
I Love you, and love your art of work 🥰
Thanks Y J. Sometimes it doesn't look like much in the beginning, but that fruit set sure is beautiful when it happens!
Thank you. Will do this next Spring.
It really does make a world of difference Beth. Your tree will thank you!
Impressive change
Thanks for good video
Glad you enjoyed this one!
I love pruning, it’s relaxing for me. I started most of my yard from cuttings I rooted after pruning.
Right there with you. We started a little earlier this year, so we could get these out there during the pruning season for everyone. What's been great is taking our time during the week in the evening and doing a tree or two right at sunset. Good call on those cuttings. We're going to do the same with figs, blackberries and mulberries this year. As you know, they tend to do really well when they've been used to your climate their entire lives!
Thanks! Clear instructions on pruning!
Glad you found this one useful Tom!
Thank you for this video! It gave me the courage to prune my own peach tree!
Glad you enjoyed this one and found it useful Tim. Pruning is always a little nerve racking, especially the first few times!
Thank you so much! i can't wait to prune my young peach.
It's definitely that time of year!
Good timing, great video!
Hey Jeff! We've been trying to time these as best we can for everyone here in AZ this year, so we're pruning everything a couple of weeks early. How is your property coming along?
Excellent video! Please show how you secure the netting when it comes time
We'll definitely do that Kay!
Winter pruning is one of my favorite times in the orchard. Around half my trees still have some leaves though, one nectarine even pushed new growth lately. Gotta go strip em down like in your last video.
We really enjoy it as well. It's a part of the cycle and forces us to focus a bit on each individual tree. Plus, we end up seeing things we otherwise would miss...like the wood pecker that has been chewing up the bark on some of the apple and apricot trees! New growth on a nectarine this time of year is unusual. Is it a young tree?
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm It was planted january 2020
@@theorangetreehomestead6660 ok, so it's probably still getting used to the weather patterns. We see that on our younger trees as well.
Great tutorial; well done!
Glad you found this one useful!
Can you show how you do bird nets and from qhat material? Birds destroy all of our fruit in tucson and we have the hardest time trying to come up with a good fix
We'll be sure to show what we do, but the netting we use can be found on Amazon. I'll link the one we use for you here;
amzn.to/3tML3qP
Now, we also use organza bags on the smaller fruit or on trees that grow rapidly. Those can also be found in our Amazon shop.
Very nice video, specially for beginners! One thing I would add, is to head one year old wood to 1.5-2’, which will allow those branches to grow thicker and stronger (more capable of carrying fruit load), will reduce the need for fruit thinning in the spring and will stimulate new branch growth, i.e. new fruiting wood for next year.
Great suggestion there Ahmad. That was the process on these trees last year at a year old. Should have mentioned that!
Sorry can u explain this ?
@@chulasexychica11 Heading means performing a pruning cut somewhere along the length of a branch, as opposed to completely removing the branch (which is called thinning cut). My recommendation above is to cut one year old wood in its “middle” leaving about ~1.5’ of it attached to the tree.
It truly is a work of art and no one will do theirs exactly the same way. So its unique to each grower :)
And youre right…if you dont thin the varieties now that overly produce…youll be in trouble later and itll be more emotionally hard to throw physical fruit away then dormant wood now.
Very well put Eric. Lori and I were talking about this yesterday and she's gone from cringing every time I make a pruning cut, to helping me decide which large branches need to go!
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm Yeah its much easier to cringe now with dead looking wood then see viable fruit get tossed to thin at a different time :(
This is a great tutorial, I have a peach tree that's due for pruning!
It's definitely that time of year. Our peach trees have already started putting on flowers for Spring!
Nice
Glad you enjoyed this one!
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm Thanks
Sick!! Thank you for this video!! I love the information!
Hey Jordan! Glad you enjoyed this one. We have several more pruning videos coming up over the next few weeks. We're trying to cover as many different types of trees as we can.
Awesome pruning tips thanks for sharing
Glad you enjoyed this one and found it useful Mary!
I'm not crying, but it's close to. It's always painful to prune, but needed for us and the health of the tree. But, it looks good, kids.
Hey Martin. Lori and I were just talking about this yesterday. She used to cringe whenever I made big cuts or took a tree down a notch. Now she's in there helping me decide which cuts to make, knowing the tree will respond with more growth and production.
Look at you using the peach tree as a seat 😆
Can you imagine being able to curl up into there during the Summer months early in the morning. Now that will be cool!
Great content as always
Glad you enjoyed this one!
You should buy commercial grade bypass loppers and hand clippers. The cut quality is much better and they last for ever! I believe the brand i have is Phoenix loppers, Carrona hand pruners and silky ultra thin curf hook saw. Artistic Arborist in N.PHX. but any Arborist supply store will have the good brands.
Hey Jesse. Thanks for the suggestions. I've heard of the silky saws before. One of my mentors when it comes to pruning apple trees used that saw for nearly all of his pruning cuts with the exception of the smallest of branches. I wasn't aware of Phoenix loppers, but Corona is my go to for hand pruners.
Asked paragraphic they said they will upload your video by next month
It will get you more exposure and subscribers
Excited for this 🎉🎉
Oh cool! We're looking forward to seeing how they put everything together. It's funny, because they were here last April, so the farm has grown in a lot since then!
It's been my understanding for peach trees is that you get better fruit when the tree isn't overly burdened with branches that will take away nutrients from the fruit. Most of the branches you cut back were ones that I thought should go, but I really don't have experience with pruning peach trees, just feedback from people that do have the experience. I was curious as to how you went about pruning your peach trees. I had never heard about the open center, but it makes sense that it would help the tree to breathe better, and that is definitely what everything needs! Thanks for leaving the link for this video for me to watch. My neighbors have peach trees around their trailers, and I tried to tell them they would get better fruit if they thinned their trees out, but they seem to half hazardly cut away on their trees with no real purpose. I don't say anything anymore; because they obviously brushed me off when I made mention about thinning their trees. They have them so close to their trailer that they worry more about cutting it back so they don't rub against it lol. This video was very helpful! I've been working with my lawn for about 5 going on 6 years now trying to increase the health of my soil. Oklahoma has a lot of sandy dirt, so I have hauled in top soil with 25% mulch mixed in where I needed to raise my ground, and I have added so many things to enrich the soils I have. I even planted some Bermuda seed this spring, which is growing up so well. I added some grass food and put a thin layer of Peat Moss over the top and watered a couple of times a day, and for the last couple of week, we have gotten a lot of rain. It was so much at one point that I was hoping that it didn't wash out. It's over an inch tall now; some of the existing grass needs to be trimmed down, which I'm going to do that, but it's going to be tall enough it wont bother the new grass at this point. I'm really happy with that. I'm hoping to buy a couple hundred acres in my old age and do a small percentage of what you are doing with your wife.
Anyway, this was a super good video, thanks for sharing it!
Ok, I wasn't sure where you were located. I imagine Oklahoma looks quite a bit different from what you're seeing here! Our escapades with grass are a bit different as we're focusing on growing forage for the chickens, but it's always a challenge to get enough nutrient in the soil for optimal growth. For us we use broiler chickens that put a heavy manure load on the ground twice a year and it seems to do wonders for us. Oh and your plan for that couple hundred acres sounds solid!
Excellent video; thank you! What is the "white" paint you have on the tree trunk?
Hey Maria, glad you enjoyed this one. I'll link to a video here where we discuss what and why we have that paint on there;
th-cam.com/video/WVh_IqHbXs0/w-d-xo.html
grab a video of the same tree when fruited and add this to show its whole process from origional before pruning after pruned and next growrth to show what you got/get for the effort
Great suggestion Neville.
have you made a massive pond catchment area anywhere
Not yet, but we have plans for at least 1 at the back of the property. We have a natural slope from North to South, so it will be on the South side to keep water flow before it leaves the property. It will also deep water our pecan trees which need that. We will also be installing swales between our mulberry trees at the South end to do the same. Mini swales are already in place for roof catchment around our vineyard garden and berry areas as well as around each tree. Lots of work still to go!
What do you think of the idea of a strong center branch for fruit trees? I just saw a presentation of an arborist advocating for this style of pruning.
We've found the open center to be very beneficial, especially when it comes to ripening fruit on the inside of the tree/canopy. It's also an important consideration if you're in an area with higher humidity as this can lessen the opportunity for disease by opening up air flow into the center of the tree. Lastly, an open center naturally lends to a smaller tree height which aids in harvesting and helps to keep aggressively growing trees in check.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm - Thank you!!
Thanks, Duane. I think I am ready to attack my peach tree tomorrow.
Glad you found this one!
Hi. This is Larry from Tucson. I’m a big fan and appreciate your helpful info. Do you have any experience with Babcock peaches?
Hey Larry, glad you're enjoying the content. We have not tried Babcock peaches before. I know many folks have them around town, but it's not one of the 3 varieties we've settled on. Those are FlordaPrince, Early Amber and Earli Grande.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm What about Saturn peaches? Did you not plant those on your new farm? I was thinking on planting one here but couldn’t help notice that you didn’t mention that variety here.
@@larrypollman5243 ah yes, we did try Saturn peaches on the old farm. The tree fruited well after a couple of years, but we couldn't get the fruit to ripening with the heavy bird pressure and tree growth stunting we usually see at that time of year. From what I recall they ripened very late for us. July timeframe if I'm not mistaken. With that we decided to skip them on this property, but I think they would definitely be worth trying if you're up for it. Very cool fruit!
Thank you for your videos! Been following along for a while now. I have a couple stone fruits going into their first winter. Unfortunately my heading cuts did not produce the best scaffold branches (short, poorly spaced, or too upright). Should I head again this winter?
Hey Andrew. This is always tough without being able to see the branching. You mentioned short, so if you have a branch that is at a good angle you can always see if the tree will put out additional growth on the same branch. If so, you can make the cut just above/beyond a bud that is facing away from the center of the tree to encourage branching from that spot. We always wind up trying to fix spacing issues in year 2 (much like you're seeing in this one) when the tree has had time to establish a strong root base. This way you can be more aggressive with pruning cuts knowing the tree will be able to respond when new growth is pushed out in Spring. The key with all of this is how aggressive the tree is growing. How much growth did you get out of it this year?
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm thank you for the advice! There was not a lot of growth on either tree (an aprium and peach). I believe largely due to their being slow to break dormancy. The peach has many short branches, less than a foot long. The aprium had more growth but with poor spacing and angles of branches (too vertical)
@@andrewhiemstra6056 ah, ok. I would probably just take off any branches that are crossing or dead and leave these trees to grow strong in the next growing season. Then you can come back and start shaping the tree.
IDK how old that paint is but impressive growth with that splitting 5:45 I paint before April 1st & again before October 1st b/c that's when I think the most scald happens.
Seems like you could add double the trees where a wall-row might help shade during the hottest 90 days of summer. Too bad there isn't a solar-panel program that can calculate if the rounded-surface area of spaced-trees differs from a wall-of-trees.
If you need a video idea you might try using fog & showing your cold-air-drainage. My mosquito fogger has shown me my cold-air drainage on certain days. IDK if Dry ice would do it but it might be the cheapest fog.
Good catch on that paint splitting. I think we painted that early summer, so that's mainly Fall flush that you're seeing there which can be pretty strong for us. We definitely could have added more trees, but our irrigation setup is such that we're maxed out with our well capacity. Now I'm off to figure out cold air drainage!
I know this is a peach tree video but are apples fairly the same? I have an Anna and a tropic sweet I purchased from Reed and they are doing amazing! Thanks for all of your amazing videos
Hey there Adriana. Apples are very similar. We have an apple pruning video we just wrapped up and should have posted this weekend that will show what we're doing with our apple trees at 1 year old...from Reid also of course!
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm awesome! I will be on the lookout. Thank you!
Pruning always makes me nervous. I'm afraid I'll make my trees looks goofy. Will you do Pruning videos down the road for your tropical trees?
Totally agree on that! This guy is fearless lol
I know just how you feel. We're many years into this, so pruning is almost second nature at this point, but that wasn't always the case! The key to all of this is the vigor of the tree. Our trees grow several feet in a year, so you can be a bit more aggressive with trees like that. Also, these are still young trees that we're shaping for future production. Once they're established we won't be quite as aggressive.
I’m very new at growing and one of two peach trees I have planted came from a flower pot ( which was doing great full of leaves) and now several weeks later seems to be dead. The other one has nothing on the upper limbs, only suckers at the bottom. I don’t know where to go from here.
There could be several things happening here. You didn't mention where you're located, but we are heading into the dormant season in the Phoenix area and most of the country is in full Fall mode. Peaches are deciduous, so they naturally drop all of their leaves in the Fall. Transplanting also causes stress on a tree which can lead to leaf drop. Be sure to remove those suckers. They are only making the stress on the tree worse. Lastly, give the trunk (above the graft point) a small scratch test to see if it's green just below the bark. If so, it's still alive which is a good sign. Beyond that, the only thing you can really do now is wait for Spring and see how it does. Hopefully it comes back nice and strong with those first flowers.
You sound just like Steve Carell!
I wish I had even a fraction of his wit. That dude is hilarious!
Great video Duane. Do you guys spray your trees in the winter with fungicide? I’m debating doing it this year.
Glad you enjoyed this one. We haven't used it in the past and don't plan on doing so this year, however we will probably start a Winter spraying regimen next year. There really isn't a downside to applying them as long as it's applied to the tree and not the soil underneath.
What will you do with all the fruit?
Great question Barb! We actually have 3 primary cash crops planned for our fruit trees. Peaches, apples and mulberries. Apples mainly because they're unique here in the desert. Peaches and mulberries because picking them ripe from a tree is the ONLY way to eat them!
My tree is too tall, can I just cut short from the height I want?
It depends on the age and size of the tree. If it's an established tree you may need to do that in stages, starting with removing center branching and moving down over a few years. The general rule of thumb is to only remove about 30% of existing branch mass in any given pruning season. We have very aggressively growing trees here on the farm, so we can push that number a little higher, but we usually stick to that as well.
👍🤝
Glad you enjoyed this one.
Correction: what I see behind you is a cat. 😆
Wait a second, you saw a cat?? You have to let me know when you saw that!!