North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Mark or Helen Angermayer" <hangermayer@isp.com>]

I have a question about limb spreading (peaches and plums)I wonder if
someone could help me?

I have some young peach trees (planted this spring) that I would like to
encourage wide crotch angles.  I've seen pictures of peach trees with very
wide crotch angles that not only look ascetically pleasing, but also easy to
harvest.  The trouble is I don't know if it's safe to train the young
scaffolds to wide crotch angles.  I've tried training pear branches to wide
angles with disappointing results.  I've attached stiff wire to the young
pear shoots to hold them away from the trunk, but after I removed the wires,
the branches continued to sag to the point they started drooping.

But I've noticed peaches tend to grow to tighter crotch angles.  In other
words, I have a peach tree that started out with good wide crotch angles,
but after a couple years the angles tightened up and now it's a fight to
keep the limbs from going vertical.   So my question is, if I train the soft
young peach scaffolds to an almost horizontal orientation, for the first 18
inches or so, will the scaffolds eventually droop like they do with pears?
Also how do plums react to spreading?

Thanks,
Mark Angermayer
Zone 5 Kansas