So my first attempt at pruning (newly planted fruit trees) was not a stellar success. The pruning shears I have are possibly not sharp enough, so the cut they made for the top heading back cut was ragged to varying degrees. I tried to clean up the ragged bits with a small hand-held pruner, but it was still an imperfect job. At least the side branch cuts seem to be (mostly) ok, since they were all done with the smaller shears. I'm just curious what's the best advice from here? Can I just leave it as is without much danger of disaster? Do I need to reprune down to a lower bud? What's the worst case scenario? What problems do ragged cuts cause? Is worst-case likely? The other thing was on one of them I have a feeling the cut is too close to the bud. Will this prevent the bud from developing? This is all very frustrating. I've read all sorts of articles and such on pruning to try to prepare for it, but seeing and understanding it on the page is not the same as being able to actually pull it off in real life. Any advice is appreciated.
If you aren't familiar with pruning of fruit trees it might be just as well not to do much of it. Unless tiny usually they come from the outlet with some training already haing taken place. Each type of fruit tree has certain styles of comparatively intense, regular pruning and training that can be undertaken; if you have not settled on a specific regimen and are not practiced in it probably better to not prune very much. Your trees will probably be more affected by the fact that you cut them back than where and how you cut them. In fact, rose bushes can even be pruned straight across the top with a saw or shear, without any selectiveness (except for the general cutting height) and do fine afterward. The cuts that aren't perfectly located relative to shoots or buds are comparatively inconsequential.
I'm trying to do the high density planting method (backyard orchard culture), so unfortunately, lots of pruning will be required to maintain the right size for my yard. In for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose. All the instructions I read said to prune it back at planting, though they differed somewhat on the degree. They're peach trees, and if I remember correctly, peaches require quite a bit of pruning annually anyway, compared to other types of fruit. I've got to learn sometime. Anyway, sounds like bad pruning at least won't kill them. I *do* hope to get better... Step one I need to get a sharpener for the stupid shears. I'm still curious what the effects are of the pruning mistakes I mentioned? Does it affect the development of the branch, or does it make it more susceptible to disease or ..?
These being stone fruits they will be generally disease susceptible. As far as shears and pruning cuts goes there is some possibility of sloppy cuts admitting disease but I'm not sure there's all that much difference between those and clean cuts in this instance, the key point should be that the tree has had openings made in the bark. In your case it might be more significant that your shears have not been maintained, if you happened to have a viable material of an infectious agent able to attack peach trees such as certain viruses or bacteria that could be important. Or, if there is more than one kind in the planting, from more than one souce and one or two of them sent to you were infected, there is the possibility of spreading it to the others. Since these are stone fruits you might think about disinfecting the shears between specimens when pruning in future. The basic pruning routine with peaches is letting them reach/training them into the size and shape specimen you want and then starting annual spur-pruning at that point or when it is being approached. Before then the ends of the branches that are to become the main framework may be left unpruned, so that acheivement of the final size and shape occurs rapidly - and growth of the branch ends into the desired directions and in a straight fashion (heading back promotes forking and twigginess) is not interfered with.
ok - thanks for the info, Ron. I had disinfected the shears before pruning, but didn't think to do it in between trees - makes sense tho...
Just a small note of caution. It is better to do pruning on a day when no rain is forecast to avoid another factor that can be a potential cause of problem.
