Home Orchards: Stone Fruit Flowering Habits

Peaches and nectarines produce their flower buds on one-year-old wood, i.e., shoots that grew the previous year. The terminal bud of peach and nectarine shoots is always vegetative. The flower buds are produced at each node (the point on the shoot where the leaf is attached) with two flower buds on either side of a vegetative bud. In cherries, apricots, and plums, flower buds are produced laterally and terminally on one-year-old shoots and on spurs on older wood. The number and distribution of flower buds can vary with tree vigor, the variety, and the light exposure under which the shoot was developed. Moderately vigorous shoots have a high proportion of good flower buds.