204 Peach-Growing 



It has been stated previously that heavy dormant-season 

 pruning tends to induce a vigorous growth of wood the follow- 

 ing season. The vigor of the growth is more or less pro- 

 portionate to the extent of the pruning. Heavy pruning, 

 it has been shown, induces a late growth of wood. The 

 relationship between late maturity and winter injury, 

 especially to the fruit-buds, in regions characterized by 

 warm periods in winter has been discussed under fertilizers 

 (page 169). For a similar reason heavily pruned trees may 

 pass through the following winter in better condition and 

 produce a better crop the next season than trees pruned so 

 lightly that it has no influence in stimulating a vigorous 

 growth, and therefore the trees mature relatively early. 

 Chandler has compared peach buds taken from trees cut 

 back the previous winter into two-year-old wood with buds 

 from trees of which only about one-third of the length of the 

 previous season's growth had been removed, and has found 

 that the breaking of the rest-period of the former was very 

 considerably delayed in comparison with the latter, and 

 therefore the fruit-buds of the heavily cut-back trees pos- 

 sessed a much better chance under southern Missouri con- 

 ditions of passing through the winter uninjured. In a 

 more northern location, where early maturity of the growth 

 is a factor in hardiness, the very fact that a tree was late in 

 maturing might explain the cause of the buds not passing 

 the winter uninjured. 



On the other hand, the same investigator records an 

 experience in an orchard seven years old where a part of the 

 trees were cut back into three- and four-year-old wood while 

 the others were not headed back. The trees severely headed 

 back made a very heavy growth the next season. The 

 following winter only buds enough survived on these trees 



