Pruning Peaches and Poms

This past week I enjoyed two fine talks on fruit horticulture. Cindy Weinstein, President of the Florida Pomegranate Association, spoke on pomegranates at our club in Palmetto, and Dr. Mercy Olmstead of UF-IFAS spoke about peaches and other stone fruit at the Suncoast Tropical Fruit and Vegetable Society in Nokomis. Both were extremely knowledgeable and informative.

Though peaches and poms are not close relatives, they have much in common. Both are touted as partial replacements for Florida's declining citrus industry. Both require varieties specially selected for Florida's humid subtropical climate. And from the viewpoint of pruning they have many similarities:

–--Both are deciduous, fast-growing plants that require vigorous pruning to fruit well and stay healthy.

---They should be pruned twice each year, once in late winter before bud break, and once in summer after fruit is formed.

---Both benefit greatly from thinning out the interior. Dr. Olmstead mentioned a rule of thumb for peaches: after pruning in the summer, you should see some broken sunlight on the ground beneath the tree. She also recommended leaving a few small central branches to provide some shade for next year's interior fruit.

---Both have a tendency to produce watersprouts. These are thin, vigorous branches that spring up on old wood. They often grow vertically. They don't produce fruit, and serve only to clog up the tree and sap its energy. Just clip them off.

---A peach tree should have a single trunk, and about four main “scaffold” branches coming out horizontally. In combination with thinning the interior, this leads to the classic “vase” shape for the tree. Although it is possible to train pomegranates to a single trunk, it's best to allow them to form several main trunks for a “shrubby” look.

---Tip the branches (cut off the last inch or so) in summer to prevent the tree from getting too lanky.

---Especially on peach trees, look for and remove “blind wood”. These are small branches that may carry fruit, but have no leaves to support the fruit growth and no leaf buds to leaf out in future years. They just draw energy from the rest of the tree, without pulling their share of the load.

---After fruit is formed but while still small, it should be thinned, especially near the ends of thin branches that won't be able to bear its weight. In general, thin peaches to one per six inches. For pomegranates, remove all fruit that lies on terminal buds. Favor fruit on strong branches toward the interior of the tree.

Finally, after all that work pruning it, don't be discouraged when your peach tree dies in ten or twelve years. That's about as long as they last in Florida.