Peach and plum trees are prone to diseases and often produce inconsistent yields. The best way to remedy these issues is with proper pruning. Annual pruning reduces disease incidence, improves fruit quality, and increases tree longevity. So when should trees be pruned and how do we go about it?
Pruning Timing
Peach and plum trees should be pruned in late winter before blooming begins. Mid- to late-February is a good time for the Florida panhandle. If trees are pruned too early they may put on new growth too early and be exposed to late winter freeze events.
Heading cut made on a recently planted whip, selecting five scaffolds and stopping terminal growth. Photo Credit: David Lawrence, Auburn University
Pruning Cuts
Two types of pruning cuts are utilized for pruning peach and plum trees; thinning and heading cuts. Thinning cuts remove unwanted shoots from their point of origin. Heading cuts are made about a 1/4 inch above a bud. Thinning cuts are used to open up the tree canopy to increase air circulation and sun exposure. Heading cuts stimulate growth in a desired direction.
Heading cut made to an outward growing bud to promote growth and direction. Photo Credit: David Lawrence, Auburn University
Open Center Training
An open center tree consists of a main trunk and three to five scaffold branches. Scaffold branches are the primary branches originating from the main trunk. These scaffold branches will produce the fruiting wood. At planting, a heading cut should be made to the main trunk about 30 inches above the soil line. This cut will promote lateral growth (scaffolds). If the tree already has lateral growth at planting, three to five scaffold branches can be selected at this time and the heading cut should be made just above these branches. Scaffold branches will be selected during year two of growth if no scaffolds were on the tree at planting. Heading cuts, removing about a 1/4 of each branch, should be made on all selected scaffold branch about a 1/4 inch above an outward growing bud. From the third year of growth and beyond annual maintenance pruning will be performed to maintain the open center growth habit. All damaged or diseased wood, suckers, and water sprouts should be removed. Large branches growing from scaffold branches toward the center of the tree should be removed, along with any upright growth that will shade out fruiting shoots. Downward growth should also be removed. Heading cuts are to be made on remaining growth to encourage desired direction of growth based on bud direction. Excessive fruit wood should be thinned to promote larger fruit and less fruit thinning.
A peach tree pruned with an open center. Photo Credit, University of Florida/IFAS Extension
Pruning peach and plum trees sounds a bit labor intensive, but once it’s part of routine maintenance it will reduce labor during the season and promote the growth of larger and better quality fruit.
A planted tree with water retention berm. Photo Credit: Matt Lollar, University of Florida/IFAS Extension – Santa Rosa County
Extension agents are frequently tasked with evaluation of unhealthy plants in the landscape. They diagnose all sorts of plant problems including those caused by disease infection, insect infiltration, or improper culture.
When evaluating trees, one problem that often comes to the surface is improper tree installation. Although poorly installed trees may survive for 10 or 15 years after planting, they rarely thrive and often experience a slow death.
Fall is an excellent time to plant a tree in Florida. A couple of weeks ago beautiful Nuttall Oak was planted at Bagdad Mill Site Park in Santa Rosa County, FL. Here are 11 easy steps to follow for proper tree installation:
Look around and up for wire, light poles, and buildings that may interfere with growth;
Dig a shallow planting hole as wide as possible;
Find the point where the top-most root emerges from the trunk;
Slide the tree carefully into the planting hole;
Position the point where the top-most root emerges from the trunk slightly above the landscape soil surface;
Straighten the tree in the hole;
Remove synthetic materials from around trunk and root ball;
Slice a shovel down in to the back fill;
Cover the exposed sides of the root ball with mulch and create water retention berm;
Stake the tree if necessary;
Come back to remove hardware after establishment.
Digging a properly sized hole for planting a tree. Photo Credit: Matt Lollar, University of Florida/IFAS Extension – Santa Rosa County
Removing synthetic material from the root ball. Photo Credit: Matt Lollar, University of Florida/IFAS Extension – Santa Rosa County
Straightening a tree and adjusting planting height. Photo Credit: Matt Lollar, University of Florida – Santa Rosa County
Pine Bark Beetles are an ever-present issue in both the urban and rural landscape across the Panhandle. If you have pines in your landscape you very well may experience issues with pine bark beetles. The tiny insects can decimate a pine rather quickly, and there are more than one type that can infest a tree. The Southern Pine Beetle is the bark beetle that most people are familiar with and most concerned about. In forestry settings the Southern Pine Beetle can have epidemic outbreaks that can devastate large areas of pine forests and plantation. While the Southern Pine Beetle is very destructive and a concern to forest health, there are other common pine bark beetles that often attack trees in our area. The two other common bark beetles are Ips pine engraver beetles and Black Turpentine Beetles. In urban settings these two beetles often are more common but they can easily wipe out several trees or more, which may pose a significant issue in the landscape.
Resin pitches on bark that indicate pine bark beetle infestation. This shows a pine that is actively colonized by bark beetles and should be removed. Photo Credit-Ian Stone
There are multiple species of Ips beetles and these tend to be a significant issue in landscapes, because they can easily wipe out most of the trees in a yard or park. They almost always target stressed or damaged trees, but they usually do not wipe out large areas like Southern Pine Beetle. Different Ips species will often attack different portions of the tree which can result in partial dieback of the crown or a slow yellowing and browning of the foliage. These beetles are very small, smaller than a grain of rice, and often are not seen readily without close inspection. Like other bark beetles the bark will often have resin oozing out and forming small pockets resembling popcorn. Other signs include yellowing and browning foliage and an accumulation of sawdust like material around the base. You may also see exit holes in the bark about the size of a pencil lead.
The Black Turpentine Beetle is closely related to the Southern Pine Beetle, but much larger and often attacks the lower portion of the tree. These beetles commonly attack older, damaged, and weakened trees. Historically they were often associated with turpentining operations and trees that had been worked for resin production, hence their common name. They are very attracted to trees that are damaged by equipment or that have had construction occur around them recently. The symptoms are generally the same as other pine bark beetles, but the resin pitches are larger and the exit holes are about the size of an eraser. While they are larger than other bark beetle they are still quite small by comparison to other insects, not much larger than a grain of rice and somewhat smaller than a pea.
If you notice pines in your area with bark beetle symptoms it is natural to be concerned. As the weather warms bark beetle activity increases and you may notice these symptoms on your pines. If you had bark beetles attack a tree in your yard last year you will want to keep an eye out for other pines being attacked in the spring. With the drought last year bark beetle activity increased and if the infected trees were not removed spots may reactivate in the spring and summer. Unfortunately, once bark beetles attack a pine there is really nothing to do other than removal. Insecticides and sprays will not do anything against bark beetles that are already in the tree. If you have high value pines in your landscape you want to preserve, prevention is key. First and foremost avoiding issues from equipment damage and construction is key as this will attract beetles. Preventative injections with systemic insecticides by a licensed professional can protect trees in your landscape. If you have noticed bark beetle activity in the area or have had to recently remove trees that died from bark beetles, consider preventative treatment to preserve trees that are at risk. Otherwise removing trees that become infested with bark beetles promptly is the best solution. Sometimes it can be difficult to determine what trees to remove, but any trees showing active bark beetle activity should be removed to prevent spread. Once bark beetles have colonized a tree and it is in decline preventative insecticide treatments are not going to be effective. You also don’t need to remove every pine in your landscape just because a single tree has bark beetles. At the following link you will find an IFAS EDIS article that is helpful in identifying bark beetles and making a decision about an infected tree https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/FR399.
If you see bark beetle activity on your property this spring contact your local IFAS extension office or your Florida Forest Service County Forester’s office for assistance and information. A Certified Arborist can assist you with determining how to remove infected trees or apply preventative treatments to trees at risk. With good decision making and management pine bark beetle attacks can be managed before they grow and spread. Now is a good time to keep an eye out and get ahead of any infestations that start.
They are often very prevalent on trees in our area; a strange string of shallow holes drilled in the bark of a tree. Often this is oozing sap, especially on pines and hardwoods with heavy sap flow, and more holes keep appearing as the sap dries up in others. I get calls and questions all the time about this strange phenomenon and what can be done about it. The calls are usually from homeowners with a prized backyard tree, but I get calls from farmers with orchard crops and other settings as well. What is causing this strange attack on these trees? What drills near perfect holes just into the sapwood of a tree? The answer is a bird of all things; and in particular the yellowbellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius). This small to mid-sized bird is in the woodpecker family and has the peculiar diet of feeding on sweet and nourishing tree sap; as well as small insects attracted to and trapped into the sap. This little native bird drills and taps trees for sweet sap. Much like we humans do with maple trees up north for syrup production. They then visit their trees and drink the sap until the tap dries up and then drill another hole. This pattern of feeding leaves this banding of holes drilled on the tree, and they drill deep enough that it will be visible for quite a long time often permanently.
Yellowbellied Sapsucker damage on an American Sycamore-Walton County, FL Photo Credit: Ian Stone
The biggest question most people want answered, beside what is doing/causing this, is will this hurt the tree? The best answer to that is mostly no, but with all things tree related it depends. On young and smaller trees, particularly newly planted ones, the feeding can stress the tree and can cause some issues. The biggest risk is that if the sapsucker drills in a complete ring around the trunk, something more common on smaller trees, they could cause the tree to be girdled and killed. Another issue is that their feeding can attract pests and disease, such as bark and wood boring beetles along with some fungal infections of the open wounds. These pest and diseases may then go on to cause severe damage and death, especially if the tree is stressed by drought or other environmental factors. Ultimately, the feeding of the yellowbellied sapsucker rarely kills or severely damages trees by itself. Most of the time it just causes unsightly damage, and the bark damage and subsequent healing over can cause an unsightly area of bark. This is especially true on thin barked trees that have smooth bark, such as beech, magnolia, and birch.
You are probably wondering how to prevent this damage in the first place or stop it once a sapsucker takes a liking to your tree. The best thing to do is to make some changes in your landscape to prevent attracting sapsuckers and/or scare them away if they are in the area. Your first step is to learn to identify the yellowbellied sapsucker, so you can tell if they are in the area. Yellowbellied sapsuckers are a woodpecker and to many they look like several of our other small woodpeckers such as the downy, red-cockaded, and possibly even the red bellied. They look the most like a slightly larger downy woodpecker with more red on their heads. Males are the most brightly colored and have a read crown and throat patch, while females have the red crown only. The back and wings are black and white, and have somewhat of a ladder appearance on the back. They are smaller birds, around 7-8 in. in length, similar in size to a robin or cardinal. They cling to the bark and shuffle up and down the tree like other woodpeckers. The namesake yellow belly is faint and difficult to see at a distance without binoculars or other aids
Yellowbellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) side profile Photo Credit: Johnny N. Dell, Bugwood.org
If you notice yellowbellied sapsuckers in your area, you can watch them to see which trees they seem attracted to. Once you identify the portion of your yard they seem to like; you can put up windsocks or predatory statues to scare them away. This is the most effective method to keep these somewhat pesky birds out of an area and stop the tree damage. It also does not harm the birds or any other wildlife, though it may scare away birds that you would like to stick around. You may see some information about putting up hardware cloth or metal sheeting around the trunk of the tree. This is not a good method and often it does not stop the sapsuckers, who simply find another unguarded portion of the tree or work around the exclusion device. Using hardware cloth or sheeting can also damage the tree worse than the sapsucker’s feeding activity, and if not properly installed and consistently loosened they can even girdle and kill a tree. If you are having trouble with the interesting but pesky birds, use the scare away method consistently until they leave the area. If they believe predators are in the area and regularly startled while feeding they usually leave for a better feeding area pretty quickly.
In the late 1700’s, explorer and naturalist William Bartram and his father, the “King’s Botanist”—visited Pensacola and much of the southeastern United States. Curious observers of everything from plant growth and wildlife to Native American culture, they were also collectors. Countless American plant species were sent to Europe for further examination and later preserved in gardens and arboretums.
The Franklin tree no longer grows in the wild, but was originally discovered and named in the late 18th century near this spot in coastal Georgia. Photo credit: Carrie Stevenson, UF IFAS Extension
If it were not for their formidable observation skills, at least one species of unique native tree would be completely extinct. While traveling along the Georgia coast in 1765, the Bartrams recorded and named a species of small tree they’d never seen anywhere before. They christened it the “Franklin tree” for their friend and compatriot Benjamin Franklin. Known scientifically as Franklinia alatamaha (after Franklin and the nearby Altamaha River), its similarity to the loblolly bay tree landed it in the Gordonia genus for a while. References in the literature to this tree may include Gordonia alatamaha, Gordonia pubescens var. subglabra, or Lacathea florida, although it is now officially Franklinia alatamaha and considered part of the tea tree family.
The attractive bloom of the Franklin tree is reminiscent of magnolia flowers. Photo credit: Scott Zona, used with permission from NCSU Extension
William Bartram knew this species was unique, as he never saw the tree elsewhere in any of his extensive travels. He returned to the area in 1776, this time collecting seeds from the Franklin trees and propagating five of them successfully back at his home in Pennsylvania. The last time this species was seen in the wild was at the original wetland floodplain along the Altamaha River between 1790-1803. Now, the only Franklin trees in existence are all descendants of the seeds collected by William Bartram.
A sign in the Brunswick, GA marine extension office/demonstration garden explains the tree’s unique history. Photo credit: Carrie Stevenson, UF IFAS Extension
Their exact cause of extinction is not clear, but there are some solid theories. Land adjacent to the river was cleared for cotton farms, and the Franklin trees were vulnerable to a fungal pathogen that affects cotton. Based on the early records, the very small endemic population was particularly susceptible to habitat destruction and changing climatic conditions.
While no longer growing in the wild, the tree is mostly living in demonstration gardens and Arboretums on the east coast. However, it can be found in the nursery trade and grown in a large swath of the country if cared for properly. I was introduced to this species for the first time at the Brunswick, Georgia marine extension office. In addition to working with fishermen, they also educate residents on native landscaping and ways to prevent stormwater runoff and pollution. Over a span of a few years, they transformed the “front yard” of their office building from a turf lawn with a couple of oaks to a lush landscape full of flowers, shrubs, and pollinator insects. Included is a Franklin tree, with signage explaining its unique history. At about 15-20 feet tall, it has reached mature height. The original site of the Bartrams’ discovery is less than 20 miles from the garden location.
Just a few years ago, this lush garden consisted only of turf grass and a few live oak trees! Photo credit: Carrie Stevenson, UF IFAS Extension
