Peach trees, what a problem, too many peaches

[wiperhunter2]

Over the years, I've had many broken branches on them, when the peaches got too heavy and the weight broke the branches they are on. This year I decided to be proactive and started pulling off peaches. I've never seen so many peaches, with clusters of three and four in groups. I'm sure I'll need to remove more but so far I've removed 24 dozen from two of the main branches. I spaced them out to a few inches apart. For those of you that have peach trees, how far apart do they need to be?
Here are some of the ones I'm thrown away, three buckets so far.


Here is a pic of the tree after I pulled off all those perches, branches are still hanging pretty low.

[Cowboypirate]

Cookie says she can help you with this problem

[wiperhunter2]

Cookie says she can help you with this problem

Problem is they are only the size of a 50 cent piece and are not ripe but if she can use them, I'll save them for her.

[Kent]

What I have heard and what I find when I Google the question is 6 to 8 inches apart. The earlier one thins them the better. If left on the tree and thinned later nutrients are wasted that went into the fruit that is thinned and the remaining fruit likely won't get as large as it would have gotten had the fruit been thinned earlier.

[Cowboypirate]

Cookie says she can help you with this problem

Problem is they are only the size of a 50 cent piece and are not ripe but if she can use them, I'll save them for her.

Ya i told her it was a bit early. Feed em to the birds

[wiperhunter2]

What I have heard and what I find when I Google the question is 6 to 8 inches apart.  The earlier one thins them the better.  If left on the tree and thinned later nutrients are wasted that went into the fruit that is thinned and the remaining fruit likely won't get as large as it would have gotten had the fruit been thinned earlier.

Thanks Kent, sounds like I have a lot more thinning to do. Earlier this week that branch that is drooping on the right was straight up but the weight made it drop down to the position you see now.

[wiperhunter2]

Cookie says she can help you with this problem

Problem is they are only the size of a 50 cent piece and are not ripe but if she can use them, I'll save them for her.

Ya i told her it was a bit early. Feed em to the birds

When they are as hard as they are now, even the birds won't eat them, so I just threw them in the garbage.

[wiperhunter2]

Ended up pulling over 30 dozen peaches off the tree but I think Kent was right, I might have waited too long because the size of the remaining peaches have not increased as much as they should have, if I had removed them earlier.