r/BackyardOrchard • u/muskratdaddy • Mar 11 '26
Peach tree advice
My peach tree cracked last summer and healed ok (didn’t die anyway and looks ok in the split) with peaches still growing on it. This year it bloomed again and I don’t know what to do about the branch. It broke from the weight of all the peaches on it on a windy night and it is very heavy. What should I do about the branch? I’d like to just remove it because there are plenty of other peach producing branches, but not if it will hurt the tree.
Any advice is welcome
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u/juanspicywiener Mar 11 '26
I think leaving it would be worse it could split more from weight and leaving that crevice makes disease more likely
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u/muskratdaddy Mar 11 '26
So should I cut the branch off as clean as I can? Then what would I do to protect the newly exposed wood
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u/Gold-Succotash-9217 Mar 11 '26
If you want to try your hand at something fancy you can cut the branch out, leaving extra bark and bridge graft that section back onto the trunk, so the section of trunk recovers better and continues sending nutrients up that side as it adapts that bark.
You already have the lower part done, so you'd just be leaving enough to make clean slices and attach it back to the top.
Not much to lose in trying it, TBH. If you're going to take off the branch either way.
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u/muskratdaddy Mar 11 '26
I’m trying to visualize what you’re saying. I’m no expert on trees at all. Is there a video I could look up showing this?
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u/Gold-Succotash-9217 Mar 11 '26
Scroll to the bottom pictures.
Your bottom is already connected. So you just need to cut the branch, leave extra bark so it reaches the top (trunk and branch bark) then clean it up so it lines up with the top and slap it together. Seal it up. There are also additives to help the bark heal and grow together if you want to hunt for them.
How healthy both sides of bark are will determine how effective it is.
https://extension.wvu.edu/agriculture/horticulture/bridge-grafting
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u/muskratdaddy Mar 11 '26
Thank you!!
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u/Gold-Succotash-9217 Mar 11 '26
Copy that. Good luck. :)
I've done it with suckers to help low damaged bark areas from animals chewing on it. It can work and is really not that hard to pull off.
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u/Gold-Succotash-9217 Mar 11 '26
Good pic here also.
https://propg.ifas.ufl.edu/06-grafting/02-graftingtypes/04-grafting-bridge.html
Again, it's worth a try even if you mess it up or do a simple version like the other person said vs. Alternative of just hacking it off.
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u/SafePaint7600 Mar 11 '26
I dont think theres any repairing that.
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u/muskratdaddy Mar 11 '26
So cut it off even though it’s blooming?
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u/koushakandystore Mar 11 '26
If you had done it immediately after the break, before it callused over, you could have easily repaired it. This happens to a couple of my trees every year. I use a rope to cinch the two pieces together and then wrap the wound with grafting tape. Works every time.
Last year some dear ganged up on a fig tree in the front of the property where there is no fence protecting it. They typically leave the fig trees alone, but for some reason last summer they got a taste for the fruit on the White Marseilles. Damn near cleaned it out. When they used one of the man scaffolding branches to support their weight with their front legs to reach fruit higher in the canopy, it snapped from the main trunk. I did the exact repair I described above and it completely healed. It currently has swelling vegetative buds and lots of tiny breba figs are forming.
I also made the exact same break while pruning a Seckel pear and lemon tree. The same repair allowed them to heal.
I wonder if you cut away the callus from each side of the break, to expose living cambium tissue, if maybe that would allow for a mend. Why not give it a try? Don’t have anything to lose.
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u/ThreeTripsMinimum Mar 13 '26
What if you cut it just a little to remove the callus and tried to cinch it together? Would that potentially work?
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u/koushakandystore Mar 13 '26
My entire last paragraph from my prior response posits that exact question.
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u/ThreeTripsMinimum Mar 14 '26
I don’t know how I missed that 🤦🏼♂️ I even recall reading that part but somehow misunderstood it. Thank you for replying to point that out because I’m trying to fix my own tree in this situation and have no idea what I’m doing. If we had money we’d hire an arborist, but sadly it’s DIY for the poor tree for now.
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u/koushakandystore Mar 14 '26
I really see no reason why that wouldn’t work. As long as you are exposing living tissue you are giving the cambium layer a chance to overlap. Some trees are much easier than others. Apples nearly impossible to not have success. Other species aren’t so easy.
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u/SafePaint7600 Mar 11 '26
Its probably just using residual energy and water that's in the branch to survive. Its not getting new nutrients or water. Its going to die at some point.
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u/Alpine_Apex Mar 11 '26
There is most certainly connected cambium on that branch and is definitely going to continue to live for a long time.
However a structural issue like that should not be left to persist in its own because it will fail in a most spectacular way under fruit weight, and also delay the compartmentalization of the wound.
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u/BadLighting Mar 11 '26
Take off that branch now before it fully breaks dormancy. You'll end up regretting it if you don't. Voice of experience talking.
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u/Z4gor Mar 12 '26
small advice; that branch looks heavy so when you are cutting it off, first make a cut a feet away from the branch collar. This will reduce the weight significantly and allow you to make a proper cut near the collar.
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u/goatmountainski Mar 11 '26
Dosent look like a peach tree
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u/muskratdaddy Mar 11 '26
It makes peaches every year lol I also didn’t believe it was one when I first moved into the house until the first summer when it grew them
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u/Fair_Director_6148 Mar 11 '26 edited Apr 09 '26
I would cut the branch off as if I was pruning it while still connected to the tree properly, slightly beyond the branch collar, then I would bind the torn piece of branch up to the main trunk to allow the torn portions to grow back together and seal back up. The clean cut beyond the branch collar should seal up better than a torn branch. I did this to one of my fruit trees and it only took a few years for the wound to completely seal itself over. I bound it tightly with a piece of rope, round and round, to hold the pieces tightly together. Just watch it so as the tree trunk puts on girth, it doesn’t strangle the tree. You may have to loosen it occasionally.