It seems like your Kania traps aren't working?

Scott,

Excellent report as always, I can' wait until my Clayton and Indian free produce. I will net them up so the squirrels don't the the chance to get them.

Tony

The squirrel pressure this year was horrible due to the very mild winter and I started trapping too late. I did catch a large number, at least 50.

Next year I am going to switch to movable traps on poles, to get the traps more in proximity of the problem.

Scott

Scott,
Just want to say thank you very much for your wonderfully informative report. I always look forward to reading it.

Scott,

Thanks for your peach report again this year. Insightful as usual.

With the drought in my area this year, there wasn't any rot. As a general rule peach quality was very good. Following are some highlights on 30+ varieties of peaches.

Early season peaches were better than usual. They were all very good except for PF1 which was pretty variable on quality. Just this spring, I planted 10 more trees of PF1 at the farm and am considering removing these even before they fruit. This is particularly disappointing to me, as I've recommended this peach as a good early season low care peach before. Rich May ripens in the same window, so it will be interesting to see if it's more consistent on flavor.

For a mid-season peach I continue to like Redhaven and Blazingstar. I know you and Hman don't like Redhaven as grown out east, but here it consistently produces high quality peaches. Blazingstar was very small as usual this year, but it continues to be one of the peach varieties I get the most positive feedback about (which agrees with my palate).

For a late peach, O'Henry was the best. I wanted to make some copies of this tree and I think I have about 10 bud grafts that "took".

Carolina Gold had the best flavor during it's harvest window. It continues to produce very small peaches, but the flavor makes it worth it.

Lady Nancy fruited the first time this year. To me, it tasted just like a yellow peach (but a very good yellow peach). The small thin yellow stripe in the flesh (characteristic of Lady Nancy) was interesting. I gave one to one of my customers and he loved it.

Excluding Lady Nancy (because it has a yellow peach flavor) Blushingstar was my favorite white peach for a white peach flavor.

In terms of Crawford type peaches. I have Baby Crawford I expect to fruit next year. I lost my last Early Crawford, but have another one ordered from Arboreum for next spring. I probably grafted 10-15 Clayton peaches from the last wood you sent me.

The fruit of Gold Dust was a bit of a disappointment to me, but I'm still questioning whether that tree was sent to me mislabeled.

I'm not down on all Redhavens, just the one I have on my property that grows gorgeous huge beautiful nearly sugarless peaches. It used to produce very good ones although not as good as the slightly later ripening Johnboy on my site. I've had plenty of wonderful Redhavens at other sites which is why I suspect that twenty years of woodchips and stable waste has just created too good a soil for the tree. It is exceptionally vigorous and receives only rain water.

Redhaven is an excellent home orchard peach in general- partly because of its exceptionally long harvest.

It could be Redhaven flavor is more soil or climate dependent. I have not grown it myself and only know it from all the local orchards growing it.

Carolina Gold has also been small for me. I don't know if you tried Rio Oso Gem, it is in a similar harvest period and is much larger (as well as a touch better in flavor). It is prone to bacterial spot.

Scott

Hi Scott and Olpea,

Would you please comment more on O'Henry regarding disease resistance and other problem it may have? I'd be quite interested if it tastes good and does not have a lot of problems.

Olpea - what do you think about Autumn Star? I just planted it this year.

Thank you.

Yes harvest, Redhaven is the best peach producer in my orchard. This season got my first Redhavens on the 21st of July. My two trees had most tree soft peaches the first week of August. Redhaven sets a incredible amount and that is key. I don't thin off all the small. The golfball size peaches turn into full sized peaches ripening into the third week of August. Redhaven gets large and has the real peachy flavor.

Sounds like I may need to add Redhaven, O'henry and maybe a few others. Great report. I have "Blushingstar", but no fruit this year...hopefully next year.

Sounds like a big squirrel problem. I also have a huge rat problem here, but its because my neighbor has a good sized black walnut full of nuts and they like to bury them in my yard. I'm tempted to bait them in one area and use my sniper skills to do away with them.

Thanks for the critique guys. Scott with your trapping success maybe you could give a critique on your best squirrel recipes.

Scott - what would you recommend as the most disease resistant peach?

My favorite disease-resistant peaches are the NC ones, Winblo, Clayton, and Carolina Gold. It was one of the few breeding programs primarily focusing on disease and taste.

Scott

Mamaung,

O'Henry has been a fairly disease resistant peach for me. It is a bit more prone to bac. spot, which is a small criticism of commercial growers, but not enough to keep them from planting it. I don't see much bac. spot on O'Henry, but I've usually sprayed Ziram early in the season. While Ziram is primarily used for scab, which is what I use it for, it also has minor efficacy against bac. spot.

It's a bit difficult for me to comment on varietal disease resistance because I pretty much spray all my peach trees the same, the exception being some trees very prone to bac. spot have been sprayed with Flameout.

My biggest disease problem is rot. With heavy rains, some varieties are more prone to it even with sprays. Most of the time it's very superficial skin rot, but it's enough that I can't sell them.

Autumnstar ripens at the same time as O'Henry. It's a bigger peach than O'Henry and the flavor is almost as good, but not quite. I did have a little bit of rot on Autumnstar this year. O'Henry doesn't rot at all.

One thing I think is important to know about peaches is that soil type and water table have a lot to do with the quality- probably as much as cultivar.

I manage one orchard where certain spots produce bland peaches on all but driest years. There, highly flavored, high brix varieties are essential and nectarines have been consistently better than peaches- really great. Plums are wonderful. The soil is a clay loam which is superior for growing vegetables but a tad rich and wet for fruit, given that we get rain throughout the growing season.

Also, although my own land has great drainage and an almost hydrophobic silt, the quality of my peaches has gone down over time. I am trying to figure out for sure if it is years of soil enrichment that is to blame.

The peaches should be improving as I open up the land to more sun every year as I cut down surrounding trees but something else is in play here. The only thing that I know has changed is the creation of a thick black layer of humus under all my older trees after up to 22 years of annual mulching. There is also a chance that excessive summer pruning is involved but I've been pretty careful about that recently.

Home growers in the east (I'm in southeastern NY) that don't mind using synthetic fungicides should consider nectarines if they like more intensely flavored fruit. Scot's recs are slanted towards rot resistance but a couple extra fungicide sprays may be worth is for many growers. Newer varieties seem less prone to cracking than some of the great oldies like Mericrest.

Scott, Thanks for the excellent report. very usfull information indeed. I never had red fleshed peaches before and would like to graft one on my tree. Where can I get some Sanguine Pilat scion?

I've picked up the impression that peaches are less disease-prone than nectarines.

Thanks for the great report Scott!

I'm eating the last of my Indian Free peaches today at lunch. Is the skin on the Indian Free a little tougher than other peaches for you? Mine seem a little fuzzier, a little thicker and sometimes have an almost tannin-like taste to them. This is my first year of actually tasting a peach from this tree so maybe the skins will get thinner over time?

Scott,

Any ideas on where I could find Clayton? I found Carolina Gold and Winblo at Vaughn Nursery this spring, but haven't seen Clayton anywhere.

Also, how do those 3 compare in disease resistance to some of the older varieties, in particular Gold Dust and Old Mixon Free?

In their first year both Carolina Gold (in-ground) and Winblo (container) did pretty well. All my in-ground (PF1 and Tango being the others) had almost pristine leaves with no sprays.
The 3 in containers (Winblo, Harrow Diamond and White Lady) all had more troubles, probably due to stress from not enough watering (weekly wasn't enough...). Winblo did the best, keeping it's leaves, even though they are a bit raggedy. Harrow Diamond lost most of its leaves and the rest are not in good shape. White Lady lost it's leaves, but grew another set, which now look pretty good.

Thanks for the great info. I hope to be able to reciprocate in a few years, at least on the apples front.

"Mine (Indian Free) seem a little fuzzier, a little thicker and sometimes have an almost tannin-like taste to them."

I remember them the same way. The peaches had a very different flavor that was nice. I would almost compare the tannin to a dry wine, but sweeter than a dry wine. Mine were also very fuzzy.

Bob,

Clayton is not sold commercially. I've looked for this tree for the last couple years and have never been able to find it. If I ever get any trees from these last Clayton grafts, I'll be happy to share the wood. I think Scott was the one who originally rediscovered this peach and has been recommending it for years. Just about all of Scott's descriptions have been spot on for the one's I've tried, the exception being Gold Dust (which I'm not sure I've got) and Redhaven which I like.

I trial more peaches that have been recommended by folks with a lot of experience in different cultivars, so I've also put in several peaches that Hman has recommended and not been disappointed. Lady Nancy is a very good tasting peach so I ordered more from Adams. John Boy (I believe that was Hman's recommendation for a mid-season peach) was not quite as good as Blazingstar which ripens at the same time, but it was still very good and much larger. Definitely a keeper. This was the first time John Boy put out a decent amount of fruit, so I don't have much experience with it. Tangos is another one that I'm very pleased with so far.

Scott,
Have you ever tried Harvester? It's always been
a good peach for me.

Sanguine Pilat and Clayton are not available commercially so you need to find a scion source and graft it. I have Clayton and will eventually have Sanguine Pilat assuming my graft takes off.

Re: rot and sprays, the more heat and humidity you have the worse rot is and we have huge amounts of both. So the importance of rot resistance depends a lot on your location. I did a few MFF sprays this summer and it helped some, but I didn't do enough sprays. The rare commercial grower of nectarines around here must be doing biweekly cover sprays all summer.

Scott

Thank you, Olpea.

If O'Henry and Autumnstar ripe about the same time, I'd have to keep what I have already had.

What Scott said about how to acquire Clayton is one more motivation for me to learn how to graft!!!

Scott, yeah, I can only speak about conditions in NY, but what about the earlier nectarines like Easternglo or even something earlier? If it ripens early I don't see how it would suffer more from humidity there than something like Redgold here.

Also if you haven't tried bi-weekly applications of Indar how do you know how it would work there? I've gotten nectarines on seasons with almost constant warm rain with that intervention.

Hman, I do think biweekly applications would work fine, and I expect that is how the few local nectarines I see are grown. The earlier nectarines would stand a better chance, but there are also the problems of heavy bug pressure and cracking -- it doesn't add up.

Ray, I have not grown any of the far south peaches. There are also many other lines of peaches I have not grown, such as the Paul Friday series, etc. If someone has grown some of the ones I like above and has another peach they think tastes as good or better, I would give that guy a spin.

Scott

Scott, how do Gold Dust and Old Mixon Free compare to the NC releases from a disease perspective? I see both for sale from Tierra Madre this year.

Thanks Scott & Olpea- hopefully in a few years I'll feel competent to graft peaches. I'm just starting with apples and pears, so it will be a while before I graduate to stonefruit.

I have had some bacterial spot on Gold Dust but its not a magnet. Oldmixon has been an easy tree with few problems. Neither are high on the rot list.

Scott

Thanks Scott! It looks like I need to find a way to fit them in.

Bob

Scott/Olpea, have you ever tried the peaches from the University of Arkansas program? White County (low acid) and White River (normal acid) seem pretty promising from this study.

Both are resistant to bacterial spot. White County is also pretty resistant to peach scab (8%,0%, and 0% impact in 3 years). It also describes it (and White Rock, an early cling) as getting 'occasional brown rot', but not in most years.

It doesn't detail out White River's susceptibility, but it does say that WR has an overall health rating of 9.7 vs WC's 8.7 (10 point scale). It list the brix for both at over 13 (higher than Redhaven's 12.3).

I haven't trialed that one. Nearly all of the modern white peaches I have found lacking in flavor compared to the best whites out there. The only really good tasting modern one I found was Yukon King but it gets horrible brown rot. Carolina Belle, Summer Pearl, etc were supposed to be good but were not all that great. So, I am reluctant to try it myself. Give it a go and let us know what you think! To compare, some truly great white peaches include Yukon King, Oldmixon Free, Silver Logan, and Carman.

Scott

Great report Scott. My lowly 'Elberta' was fabulous this year. I was so surprised as to how easy the skin was to peel off of the peach. I planted a 'Belle of Georgia' this spring but I have a bit of a wait to taste the fruit. Its a true dwarf. Your list makes me yearn for more room and time! Mrs. G