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RE: Can too many peaches be a bad thing?
We moved here in 2014. There were 5 apple trees, 2 wild plums, one peach and two pears. The peach was killed by a storm. We did not even start pruning till last year. The pears are too large. Not sure how we're going to work on those. Three apples are farther away growing wild. Never pruned. One of them in 2016 was so full of apples it didn't produce more than a handful last year. It's in heavy bloom right now though. I'll try removing fruit. Our compost will like it.
Good grief those peaches look amazing. How do you keep them healthy without bugs and disease? We have a cedar apple rust problem here. ) :
I read from an apple orchard book that wild apple trees tend to produce lots of apples one year and then almost nothing the next year because the heavy fruit set for one year is so stressful for the tree that it will not be able to produce many blossoms the next year. I have never been lucky enough to observe a wild apple tree, but from what you said, it must be true. According to the apple orchard book, if you remove good amount of blossoms every year, you shall have apples consistently year after year.
I also have read not to put fruit you thinned in compost so you don't spread diseases in case you have one. I am not sure if this is still true, but I never put fruit I thinned in the compost just in case. I might be overly cautious though.
I think I got lucky last year to have such healthy peaches from my two three-year old trees. I had a few peaches with brown rot but it did not spread. I am hoping they don't show up again this year. Fingers crossed.
I am sorry to hear you have a cedar apple rust problem. I have heard cedar trees and apple trees don't mix, but I have not had personal experience with it.
I don't think these trees are technically wild, but they do not appear to have ever been pruned which seems to be why they're not growing with branches crisscrossed or sticking straight up. Supposedly once a tree is pruned, it needs pruning forever. It is growing wild even though it appears to have been planted intentionally.
Maybe I should try knocking flowers off. Those would be easier than little fruit. I saw a bunch of itty bitty Robin's who'd just learned to fly go flower to flower eating the center flower bud just as the color was starting to break. I was worried they were going to eat all the buds lol. They went flower to flower. Literally every flower.
I has absolutely no idea what cedar apple rust was until it formed huge goey orange gel like stiff oozing from these brown ball things hanging from the cedar branches. Apparently we have an especially bad problem with it. The apples were not affected last year, but it spreads in a 3 year cycle. Whoever lived here before us must not have known, either, because they specifically planted trees that seem counter intuitive. Like maples under power lines and black locust beside the driveway and front porch.