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| This is a photo of my Arctic Star Nectarine tree. Photo was taken on Jan 31st. It is the 1st of my trees to bloom. I'm going to update this post throughout the year showing bloom to harvest - kind of a year in the life. Tree is about 6' tall. I'm located in SF Bay Area. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Nice! What a great nectarine. Mine is not in full bloom yet, but it's pretty close. |
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| Nice job keeping the tree in bounds. I cut down my oldest Arctic Star this winter, from 2002. It produced some great fruit. Trunk was a lot bigger than yours looks, nearly 8 inches. It was planted 6ft by 8ft so never had a top much bigger than yours. I have another tree about 4 years old and one I just planted a week ago. My 4 year tree is just swelling buds. Had to wait while I was chilling the cherries. I have many trees that bloom before Arctic Star. Honey May is about to open first flowers. Some pluots and apricots/aprium are also earlier to bloom. |
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| The picture is misleading - the trunk at the graft is 12" around. This tree produces tons of great fruit, but is susceptible to Peach Leaf Curl, Brown Rot and Western Flower Thrips (see attached for Thrip damage) I spray for all three conditions and usually keep it under pretty good control |
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| Not trying to outdo you on tree size. But your tree is small for 10 years. I like the smaller trees. One reason I took out the Arctic Star planted in my greenhouse March 2005 was it got too big. The other tree in picture is Arctic Star planted Jan 2010 so it's been there 4 years, 5 less than big tree. But I've kept the younger tree pruned back much smaller than the older tree was allowed to get. The younger looks more like yours in terms of a trunk. The big stump was cut a month ago and pulled out of the wood pile. Better view of top and buds. This is a small tree considering it's going on 5th leaf. Both on Citation.
Trees in background are newly planted. I still need to decide how much to prune them back and how to train them. |
This post was edited by fruitnut on Wed, Feb 5, 14 at 14:36
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| letsski, how do you keep the weeds from growing around the stones in your garden? Thanks, Mrs. G |
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| Fruitnut - yes, your stump looks much thicker than my tree. Maybe I'm measuring wrong. With the exception of my citrus trees, I don't water through the summer. I think it tends to stunt them a bit, plus I prune very heavily. Mrs G47 - when I initially laid the stones down, I put a breathable barrier down first. I still get weeds, but I pull most by hand. |
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| Letsski, Beautiful tree! I live in the North Bay area and have found nectarines to be trickier than peaches. Most of them have the thrip damage like your picture. Wondering what your spray regimen for the thrips (and brown rot) is? |
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- Posted by melikeeatplants 9b (San Jose) (My Page) on Thu, Feb 6, 14 at 0:21
| What's the issue with thrips? I had that damage on my Arctic Jay nectarine last year and they tasted fine.... Is it only cosmetic? |
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| That damage may be thrips but it may also be relate to a water deficit in the tree and fruit. At least that's what my experience has been. When water is rationed back to increase brix the tip of the fruit can crack like that. It usually doesn't happen unless the deficit is severe. The variety that's shown that most severely for me has been Arctic Queen. But it was also in an area that was particularly exposed to sun and heat. The OP said he doesn't water all summer. Anyone else experiencing this issue care to relay your watering regimen? |
This post was edited by fruitnut on Thu, Feb 6, 14 at 9:19
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| On my nectarines, the cracking is usually associated with oozing and parts of the inside of the nectarine turn brown and rotten. Most of the crop is lost. My trees are irrigated with no water deficit. There are lots of pictures on google identifying damage similar to what I have seen as thrips damage. I'm excited to have learned recently that a single spray of Spinosad at petal fall should take care of most of this problem. Interested to hear how OP has brought this under control. |
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| johnnycom: Most of the crop being lost sounds more like brown rot. You won't see much rotting from water deficit or thrips. If the cracks are big enough there can be some rot. But I've never lost most of the crop. |
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| I spray Spinosad just at petal fall for Thrips and seems to take care of most of the damage. I have found that the scarring is much more prone to rot than intact fruit, over and above damage I get from Brown rot. I'm attaching an image from UC Davis showing Thrip damage on Nectarines. It looked exactly like my fruit, which is how I diagnosed the culprit. |
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| I don't have any fruit that looks like that. The water deficit cracking is only on the tip of the fruit. The earlier picture looks like the cracking is on the tip. The picture above has damage up on the side of the fruit. |
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| That last picture looks like my fruit (without the oozing). Spinosad at petal fall, here I come. I am really looking forward to some nice nectarines! |
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