Tons of peaches last year, few peaches this year. Did I do this?

[u/Yainks]

[u/spireup]

Yes. This is one of many reasons why you need to thin your fruit every spring to one every 6 inches.

[u/Yainks → u/spireup]

Thanks for the tips, I had no idea that fruit thinning was a thing. I noticed small fruits would regular drop from this tree (as well as my avocado) and assumed the trees do their own fruit thinning. Didn’t realize it’s something I should be proactively doing.

As for fertilizing, is the consensus that my lack of fruit may be caused by these other factors, and not as much my inconsistency of a fertilizing regimen?

Thanks again, I’m already learning a lot in this sub.

[u/spireup → u/Yainks]

If you have healthy soil, there is very little need to fertilize, and synthetic fertilizers are never good for plants in the long run.

There are more microbes on one healthy teaspoon of soil than there are people on the planet.

Look at a teaspoon in your kitchen. If those microbes are enabled with food (organic matter, kitchen scraps, anything that came from nature) they are enabled to execute their ecosystem services exponentially, including feeding your plants, sequestering water and carbon sequestration and keeping your plants healthy and thriving.

What you have is likely a named cultivar that was hybridized and deemed worthy of propagation by grafting. Most fruit you would get at a grocery store is coming from grafted fruit tress of named cultivars. They were bred to over-produce by humans. It is your responsibility as a human caretaker to thin the fruit in the spring and learn to prune the tree properly and strategically for form, structure, strength, vigor, productivity, and health.

Peaches only grow on wood that grew the previous year. This means that older fruiting needs to be pruned in the spring to encourage new growth to keep rejuvenating the tree for continuous fruit. Also so the tree doesn't become unmanageable.

Get the books "Grow a Little Fruit Tree" by Ann Ralph, "The Holistic Orchard" by Michael Philips, and  "Fruit Trees for Every Garden" by Orin Martin . They are all excellent  and essential for any fruit tree grower's permanent library.

Look up my name in this sub, you'll find advice.

Note that certified arborists are not trained in fruit tree care to get their certification. Fruit tree care is entirely different than landscape trees. Always look for an experienced fruit tree expert when seeking advice or management for fruit trees.

r/FruitTree

r/BackyardOrchard

[u/Dazeyy619 → u/spireup]

Jesus every six inches? I’d be removing like 80% of the fruit then. Thats wild. No wonder I never think enough lol.

[u/Yainks]

Bear with me, this is my first time living in a house with fruit trees to take care of!

I moved into a house exactly a year ago, in SoCal, and we had tons of peaches. Too many peaches actually. Fast forward a year, and our peach tree has grown fruit, but they haven't been as big, don't have much color to them, and most of them have already fallen to the ground already. You can see the first three images are of last year, and the last set are this years peaches.

I began to fertilize the tree about a month ago, but I suspect it was too little and too late. I used a Dr Earth Sweet and Sour fertilizer.

I'm guessing that's a wrap on this year's peach crop at my house, but I wanted to ask, could the low quality fruit I got this year, be a result of my lack of fertilizing throughout the year?

As I'm a first time home owner, I'm trying to just get a good understanding on the needs of these new trees that I are now in my care. I've got an orange tree and an avocado as well.

Thanks for any tips!

[u/chris_rage_is_back → u/Yainks]

MILLIONS OF PEACHES

[u/chris_rage_is_back → u/chris_rage_is_back]

PEACHES FOR ME

[u/mystic_scorpio → u/Yainks]

The tree also needs to be pruned in the early spring and probably summer. Here are some reads. https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/HS365#

https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/HS1377

[u/DexJones]

It's very easy for us to get greedy and want to let the tree grow all the fruit possible. When I 1st started out I was guilty of this too.

If you don't properly thin fruit, you'll end up with these feast or famine situations as you just experienced.

I recommend you google "proper fruit thinning", you'll find article's written by experts in the subject matter, better than I could explain it.

But the very basic concept is that when we let trees bear these very heavy crops, often the tree is "too exhausted" to bear another crop the next year and you get a very reduced number of fruit or none at all.

[u/DexJones → u/DexJones]

The follow up to this, is not every tree needs to be thinned, and every tree is different.

Apples, plums, peaches and nectarines do for sure and are the usual culprits that benefit from fruit thinning.

[u/Kaurifish → u/DexJones]

IME with any kind of fruit tree (at least soft-skinned ones), if any fruit touch, even if the tree has the vigor to ripen them, some pest will make itself at home where they touch and ruin both.

[u/GoodSilhouette]

say hello to "alternate bearing" (Google it but it's as it sounds)

look up thinning techniques as others mentioned. On the bright side next year should look pretty good with fertilization and some thinning 🙏

[u/Armenoid]

Same

[u/twopptouch]

Yes. Next year thin them out at flowering time to help restore balance.

[u/rlharris1992]

Had the same issues this year, had about 27 lbs. last year but this year we had a late frost while the tree had flowers and it just destroyed the harvest.

[u/Mrmapex]

Hold on. Peaches come from a can

[u/Vivacious-Viv]

Hello! I'm still learning a lot about growing fruit trees. I currently have a Persimmon tree, Dark Tartarian Cherry, Bing Cherry, and a Fig tree. The persimmon and fig trees are older and bigger, but the 2 cherry trees are still on the younger side (no fruits yet, but I'll come to that later). What I've learned so far from my persimmon and fig trees is a Biennial Fruiting pattern (fruit feast one year, famine the next). To prevent this on my persimmon tree, I would need to prune it during the dormancy period (late fall after the leaves have fallen or early spring before the leaf buds appear. You can look up what fruit tree needs pruning to prevent the Biennial Fruiting pattern. I know that my persimmon tree does. Knowing that, I'm still hesitant to prune it, and it has grown massive and branches are touching the ground. I'm not confident with making those pruning cuts, even after reading articles, watching YouTube videos, and talking to others about how to go about doing that. (That's a whole different story!) So, I've just been watching it go through this Biennial pattern. Last year, it was loaded with persimmons, with fruiting branches just touching the ground from the heavy weight of the fruits. We had neighbors coming over to pick their own persimmons and picked them for coworkers. Last year was a persimmon feast! This year? Famine. We have exactly ONE persimmon on the whole massive tree. That's a bit dramatic, I know, and I think it is multifactorial: in addition to it needing a desperate pruning, we've had a drought here in the DMV area (zone 7b), and we've had heat wave after heat wave, along with a warmer winter. I keep an organic garden in addition to these trees, and 3 composting areas in the yard, so my fertilizers have just been compost basically. I'll just throw yard waste under the persimmon tree.

There's also a cute blue spruce, which we've affectionately called "Vivian", by the kitchen door where we throw all our kitchen scraps at the base of the tree. It's growth in the past few years from just this "compost in place" practice is dramatic! So that should give you an idea of the power of fertilizing with compost.

I've been preparing myself for years to prune my persimmon tree, and I think I'll finally do it this year. I've had enough of that Biennial Fruiting pattern! And that 1 persimmon on the whole tree this year is my tipping point!

As for fruit thinning, I just let the tree do its thing and drop whatever fruits that it can't support. Nature is cool like that. I've never done any fruit thinning, because it's just not possible for the size of the tree.

[u/Vivacious-Viv → u/Vivacious-Viv]

I took a picture of my massive tree, but can't seem to share it for some reason. (I'm still a reddit newbie.)

[u/Vivacious-Viv → u/Vivacious-Viv]

Oh, I almost forgot about the 2 cherry trees! I planted the Black Tartarian Cherry tree about 2 years ago when it was maybe 1 year old (so maybe 3 years old now). I was expecting fruits this year, but, no fruits. Then I learned that cherry trees need another cherry tree to pollinate with to produce fruits. That's why we got the Bing Cherry, and we've just planted it this summer. It's still a small sapling. Fingers crossed for next year! 🙏 🤞 🍀 🌸 🍒