Ten days ago I pruned my peach and plumcot trees. Given our exceptionally mild winter, the first week of February was already on the late end of optimal pruning time. I still consider myself a novice pruner, but while at the State Master Gardener conference in California last year, three basic principles for fruit tree pruning were clarified for me during a workshop.
With both of these trees that I planted in 2009, my goal is to achieve an open-centered “wine-glass” shape with no central leader. I have done some pruning on them each year since their planting.
First I removed any branches that were growing vertically. In general, vertical branches will not produce fruit. I also removed branches that angled back in towards the center. Most of these branches were smaller growth from last year. I also removed a couple of larger branches that were growing too closely to others and throwing off the evenly radiating wine-glass shape that I want such as the one pictured on the right side of the plumcot below. Ideally, I would have removed this branch last year before it got this big.
I removed the smaller vertical branches seen here.
I removed the large branch on the lower right side of this plumcot.
Second, I removed up to 30% off of the ends of the remaining branches in order to obtain a series of “y”s. See the picture below.
I cut this branch back to make a 'y'.
Third, I began training branches that were growing at an angle of higher than 60 degrees. A branch angle between 45 and 60 degrees encourages more fruiting. Again, I should have started this training process last year or even two years ago, but better late than never. I will need to replace the training tape that I’m using in the picture below with something more firm, as this tape will stretch, but this is what I had on hand.
Training the plumcot branches. I'll need to replace this trellising tape with something more sturdy.
It’s gratifying to see the form of trees move slowly towards the shape that I envisioned in my mind. Next year I’ll continue the process.