Left to its own course, a peach tree will bear many more fruits
than it can grow to adequate size if they all make it through the
late frosts. But proper hand-thinning or judicious pruning can
lead to an optimal backyard peach crop.

Generally, we advise homeowners to remove fruits to a spacing of
6 inches along shoots on the outer portion of the canopy and 8
inches along shoots in the shaded portion.

That sounds pretty easy. But there’s more to thinning a tree than
just dropping some fruits on the ground on a Saturday
afternoon.

Timing Is Everything

“Timing is everything,” they say. And in the case of thinning
peaches, that’s absolutely true. As fruits develop, every week
after bloom that the tree carries too many fruits can cost 3
percent to 6 percent in fruit size.

Earlier thinning also improves the crop yield and fruit size you
can expect the following year. This is because the following
year’s fruit buds are being produced while fruit is still on the
tree.

So earlier thinning will allow more water and nutrients to be
available not only for this year’s crop, but for next year’s as
well.

Thin Flowers Carefully

If you’re thinning blooms, be careful to leave more flowers to
hedge bets against a late frost. Thin to two or three flowers
every 4 inches along a shoot — two near the end of the shoot and
three close to the base.

You can follow that practice two to three weeks later by removing
small fruits to the 6- to 8-inch spacing. Making two trips to the
tree is laborious and time-consuming. But it’s effective.

Or you can use yet another method of reducing the fruit load per
tree. Pruning during the dormant season (after Valentine’s Day to
avoid a tree-damaging freeze) can reduce the amount of
hand-thinning by 10 percent. Best of all, if you do it properly,
you can increase the tree’s yield by 12 percent or more.

Less Is More

You may wonder why removing shoot tissue that could bear fruit
will improve the yield. There are two reasons.

1. The crop load to which the tree will be distributing water
   and nutrients will be lowered to a level the tree’s systems can
   handle.




2. The amount of unnecessary vegetative (shading) growth will be
   reduced. In other words, this pruning can bring a tree into a
   balance that favors optimum fruit growth.

Research has revealed that removing all shoots less than 12
inches long resulted in greater numbers and size of fruits and in
many more pounds of fruit per tree.

Besides removing these smaller shoots, if you also reduce the
length of the remaining shoots by 50 percent, the yield on some
varieties increased by 30 percent and the size by up to 16
percent in some years, compared to trees that aren’t pruned.

It’s worth the effort. A little extra time this spring will bring
fruitful results this summer.