This year for the first time I did a midseason MFF spray and I had much better luck with brown rot. Only Sweet Bagel rotted badly.

The squirrels were nonexistent until one day they were everywhere, and I lost the first couple weeks of peaches. As usual. I haven't eaten a Gold Dust in three years now.

Stinkers this year were well in evidence, in particular on some peach varieties. But I never found more than 2-3 on any one tree; the level was low enough that I never had the desire to spray Surround.

OFM was almost non-existent on early peaches but I had a fair amount on the very late varieties. Late OFM damage has been a problem for several years now. I probably needed to renew mating disruption lures in July, and do a later spinosad on the late varieties.

These are listed in order of ripening.

Gold Dust - squirlz got them yet again.

Nectar - squirlz. I had thinned a branch of very immature fruits and left it on the ground, big mistake .. it got the squirlz interested in the ones on the tree. Theres a mistake I won't make again.

Sanguine Pilat - squirlz.

John Rivers - squirlz.

Flat Wonderful - squirlz. I'm seeing a pattern here.

Clayton - I put a trap in this tree and things got flipped, the tree ate the squirlz :-) The early Claytons were fine but not great. Later ones were very good. I let a few stay on too long and those were mealy. Clayton has a big problem with overset, it needs major thinning or the fruits will not size or flavor well. This year I think the flavor took a bit of a hit due to underthinning.

TangOs - I still think this is a good peach but they are not uniformly good. Lots of rubber there and some did not ripen well, they never sweetened up. Also more emphasizing the sweet as opposed to flavor. While the fruits are stil beautiful and I like how different it is, my excitement for this variety has waned.

Winblo - Excellent taste, better than Clayton on average this year. Tree still in borer recovery mode but doing better than last year.

Mericrest - WOW! These guys are stellar, the best so far this year. Very intense flavor. The fruits are small but not as small as last year. Overall this is the only real keeper of all the nectarines I tried.

Zin Dai - Very very nice elegant flavored white peach. More flavor than I recall from last year. Tree is very productive, seems like a real winner. Clingness is only negative.

Carman - A very good white. I am less positive on these this year, they have a bit too much of that "green peach" flavor. I think it may be related to the rain at ripening; some of them were really good.

Red Baron - Lots of flavor, very good. Plus blooms that I get comments from the neighbors on. Squirlz got most unfortunatley.

Peregrine - Squirlz for the 5th of so year in a row.

Ernie's Choice - Squirlz got nearly all of these; I had one which was very good, better than I remember from this variety. They are a hard peach and need to be picked earlier than other varieties if going by the finger push by stem test. Huge fruits; lumpy shape with a big seam. I was going to take it out but I think I will keep it for a few more years.

Baby Crawford - Fruits small but not as small as Early Crawford. Head to head with EC this guy is less sweet, less sour, less flavor. It has a more creamy flavor than EC. I would rank this guy similar to Carolina Gold, but its fruits are smaller and the tree is less productive. Not what I had hoped for overall, but still a good peach

Athena - A honey type peach. Very good this year, I thinned more than usual and they are sizing bigger and tasting excellent. This tree is looking like a real winner, I'm glad I stuck with it. Some fruits were smaller and not very good but the bigger fruits were truly excellent. One of the best this year.

Okubo - tree dying, no fruit.

Lola Queen - Good peach that is very similar to Carmen; ripens two weeks later. Looks better than Carman, more like Zin Dai in looks less Green more round. Lots of damage on fruits, I think stinkbugs got it early on. Flavor is excellent, a top white peach.

St. John - Tree is getting some rot on damaged areas. Shows its high rot susceptibility; but, with the MFF they didn't all rot like they usually do. Taste is excellent as usual, sweet/tart and a touch of apricot. Fruits are more normal size this year, I thinned it better than I had been doing. If not for the rot this would be a top peach, its one of the top three for flavor. The fruits are also very soft and more prone to bug infestations. Overall while this peach has great flavor its not worth the work.

Eagle Beak - Squirlz.

Dixon Cling - This peach has a very good flavor but its more a cooking peach, they were rubbery even after letting hang a long time. There isn't a lot of room where this one is so it will probably be removed.

Early Crawford - Excellent as usual. Sweet/tart and a lot of flavor. Getting a good sized harvest this year. Only problem is the birds and wasps know its good as well. Fruit are small, smaller than any other peach. They don't do well when left to hang too long in hot weather, they start doing something like water coring from the inside out. I also had this on several other varieties ripening in the hot weeks.

Foster - Very sweet and flavorful and excellent flavor balance. Truly great when perfectly ripened. Tree had borers so not many fruits on it. Also the fruits seem more susceptible to bug etc damage than most.

Longevity - Tree is in trouble. I got a couple small fruits that were quite good, they remind me of its parent, Eagle Beak.

Carolina Gold - Coming in with a big load this year. This is a good quality peach. The main advantage is the peaches are looking very nice and the productivity is very high.

Pallas - Thinned better than usual, getting some quite large size fruits. They taste similar to but not quite as good as Athena this year. Needs extreme thinning due to strong set.

Lady Nancy - A very good white peach. Very similar to Oldmixon Free, the only difference I notice is the seed on LN was a bit smaller. I was not comparing equal levels of ripeness since LN is a small graft still.

Oldmixon Free - fantastic as usual. These later whites are a significant step above the early ones. The early ones when good are just as good, but they can have too much "green" flavor in them. Some of the OF fruits are lesser this year, I think I let the tree overset. They are still big, just not enough flavor. 90% of the fruits are excellent.

OHenry - Wow, these were awesome this year! Vying with Early Crawford for best peach honors. Super rich and sweet. The dry weather must have helped them.

Late Crawford - Very good this year, also very large. Turning into an exceptional late peach with large amounts of classic peach flavor. Fruits very fragile is only downside.

Sweet Bagel - The one limb I kept is rotting, sigh. Overall it is too rot-prone.

Indian Cling - Heavy production as usual. They seem to be best if picked as they start to drop off and then let sit inside for 3-5 days before cooking with them. They can be hard/rubbery even after cooking if they are picked early and cooked right away. I made some excellent sorbet from them this year.

Indian Free - Eye popping flavor as usual, WOW. Thinned better this year so fruits are normal peach size. A few fruits rotted but most were OK. This is probably my #1 peach for taste.

Heath Cling - I am starting to think the premature drop of these is correlated with bugs in the fruit - I am finding OFM in many of the dropped ones. I managed to harvest a fair number from the tree this year. This variety is a keeper, it and Indian Free are far later than others. It is not a fresh eating peach, pretty much cooking only; cooking greatly improves the flavor as well. Historically it was a cooking, drying, and pickling peach.

Scott

Indian Free is also Dave Wilson Nursery all time point leader in their taste tests against all stone fruits. Well it was, always subject to change.
I'm looking for a couple good yellows. You mention several, thanks!

Tony

Drew, I also planted a Jefferson, from the same order. It has grown well this year (better than White River, which is still pretty small), so maybe I'll be able to comment on the fruit next summer.

Good report... Now i might have to add one or two more peaches

Only one year, but I think TangOs kind of sucks...but it is easy to grow, or at least this year was.

Squirrels are so bad around here. I take out a lot, but more just show up. annoying. Early season stuff escapes, but late season stuff gets hit.

I always look forward to your peach report. Thanks for posting it again this year.

I think I finally got a good percentage of Clayton's to take from the wood you sent me. Yea!!! After much effort, I'm looking forward to what it tastes like. It's such a rare peach. I hope it tastes as good here as it does most years for you there.

My Baby Crawfords were pretty small. As we discussed in emails, there is some question on the size of a Baby Crawford and when it's supposed to ripen. I got mine from Raintree and the fruit matches their catalog picture, but of course that isn't at all conclusive evidence.

As we've seen, Websites are still using Konrad's picture of what is not a Superior plum, as a Superior plum, despite Konrad's efforts to correct them.

I'm glad to hear your remarks about Winblo. I planted 3 new trees of it this year and grafted several more. I don't like making copies of trees whose fruit I've never sampled, but Winblo seems to have such widespread support for flavor, I went ahead and made copies of it.

Bob,

I hope my comments don't discourage you too much from White County. My wife was sad to see me cut it down (it was her favorite peach) but after two years of problems with the fruit on a mature tree, it just wasn't worth keeping. We have about 10 new white varieties at the farm anyway (some subacid) so I'm hopeful she will really like one of those. She did very much like Lady Nancy, which is not sub-acid at all.

Can anyone give a better description of the taste of Indian Free? Bay Laurel says tart until fully ripe then sweet with distinctive flavor. But my experience is that tart peaches and nectarines seldom get sweet enough to balance out. My best tasting nectarines aren't anywhere in the tart zip code. They have a very rich, non-tart flavor.

Anyone have recommendations on really late peach or nectarines? My interest in Indian Free is partly that it's late. But I'd like something even later. I have 6-8 weeks of warmth in the greenhouse this time of year after all peach/nectarine are done.

fruitnut - That sounds like a good challenge for you - if anyone can get it to maximum sweetness, you should be able to :)

I agree in theory but I either can't stand these fruits anywhere near tart or I'm failing to get them sweet enough where others can.

Funny thing is the best apple I ever grew was Pink Lady in Amarillo. They were very tart but also very sweet. I couldn't eat just one and it nearly took the first one for my taste buds to numb up a bit, they were that tart.

My O'Henry is pretty late here in Omaha. I just harvested a few yesterday. Excellent tasting.

Tony

Well except for Arctic Jay, right? It sounds like Indian Free does balance as it is after all the all-time highest scoring on the DWN taste tests. Unusual as mostly low acid types win these taste tests!
The Paul Friday series has not been that well received but at least you know when they ripen! PF Fashionably Late ripens 54 days after Red Haven (Aug. 1st).

Well, I might as well tack on my 2013 peach report with my limited varieties.

Growing conditions were a challenge this year in several respects. First, for over a year I was living and working out of state and the person living in my home did not do anything with my orchard - no pruning in either 2012 or 2013, no fertilizing, no spraying, no pick-up of diseased fruit, etc. I moved home in April, without time for any real maintainance before the flowers opened. Second, this was a really wet June through the 3rd week of July - never more than 3 days without rain and usually some at least every other day, 7 inches rainfall in one 8 day period. Even with the rain I managed to keep a spraying schedule going, but with rain every next day I suspect that the benefits of the sprays were lessened. In addition to the rain, much of June was hotter and therefore much more humid than normal. I want to thank those on the forum here who advised using Monterrey Fungi Fighter to prevent brown rot - it made a difference this year for me. Two of my trees, Raritan Rose and Carolina Belle, were planted at my office building which is now for sale and therefore this is my last year with those. But anyway, on with the report.

Raritan Rose is 22 y. old, has lost many of its increasingly brittle branches in last few years, bark splotched with lichen in many places, but it still produced almost a bushel of smaller-than-usual fruit, of a little lower quality than in the past. No real problem with PC or OFM at that site but tree has some bacterial spot.

unknown white - 17 yrs old, was supposed to be a Stark Early White Giant but it ripens a month later than that variety should (starts ripening about Aug 10 or so), very high quality fruit but is very prone to rot, and this year had a lot of PC and OFM despite spraying, and now has bac spot. Many branches show signs of diseased bark. Probably got only about 1/2 of the fruit safely harvested that was on it 2 weeks beforehand due to brown rot.

Hale Haven - 19 yrs old, extremely good tasting, but also very prone to rot and has the same problems as above. Probably got only about 1/3 of the fruit harvested that was on it 2 weeks beforehand due to rot.

Carolina Belle - abt 8 yrs old. In past got at most 10 fruit, this year a large quantity, but due to inadequate pruning, the top was quite high and I could not thin it adequately, peaches smaller than usual. Very good taste also, but a few fruit that looked normal had a sour flavor, not noted in past. ? if from stinkbugs or some other problem? A little bac spot.

Encore - 20 yrs old. Also inadequately thinned at top due to height, and also had a lot of PC, OFM, and bac spot. Never as high quality as my other peaches, but enjoyable in Sept. This variety never gets as red colored for me as other peaches (not that I care about that) and always sets an enormous crop, is always a challenge to thin adequately.

Given the age of some of these and due to selling my office location, I have planted 3 new peaches this year - PF-5b, Garnet Beauty (had one fruit this year, very dark red and delicious but markedly later than expected), BlushingStar, plus my first nectarine, Hardired - and am expanding my orchard with a few more next spring also.

Single Garnet Beauty:

Ed Boone

Paul Friday won't have anything nearly as late as I'm wanting. My greenhouse season is 3-4 months longer than MI. My harvest now runs mid April until October overall for stone fruits. But the last nectarine is early Sept. I have warmth and sun until Nov 1 when I go on chill cycle.

Last I checked Arctic Jay topped DWN taste testing two years and still ranks all time highest.

I've no idea when Indian Free would ripen in your greenhouse, but here it was my latest peach.

It was tart, but also sweet. I could compare it to cranberry juice (but much better IMO). I think if you like a sweet Pink Lady, you would like Indian Free.

The only reason I cut it down was because it ripened at the very end of the season when nobody is interested in buying peaches plus by that time my family and I are burnt out on peaches. Added to that is that it cracks in rain and is pretty susc. to bac. spot (none of which would be an issue for you).

It is very unique. I've never tasted another peach quite like it. Strange as it may sound, I may eventually plant another tree of it in my backyard now that I have more room. The flesh is beautiful and the taste connoisseur like. I think you should try it.

PF is last on that chart I posted, so good luck! Early October is as late as it get's on that chart.

"Last I checked Arctic Jay topped DWN taste testing two years and still ranks all time highest."

I see DWN has Indian Free as highest rated peach, my bad.
Note Indian Free needs a pollinator, not self fertile.

My trees start leafing out in January and drop their leaves in December. Not Paul Friday territory.

Olpea:

Thanks for your input. I really doubt I'd like Indian Free. And I'm looking for something 4-6 weeks later.

No report on Rio Oso Gem peach this year?

Fruitnut, Indian free is like a grape or mango in terms of the sweet/sour balance. In other words, lots of sweet and lots of sour. The flavor is white peach plus cranberry plus aroma.

Scott

It's too bad you have limitations. All west coast trees can be grown here. Our biggest problem is certain fungal diseases are not of concern on the west coast, so resistance is often not bred for. It's not that we can't grow them, as we can, it's just that they are too suceptable for this area to be productive. Many, many exceptions, like I suspect Arctic Jay will grow fine here. One of it's parents is OHenry. Another problem is bloom time, but if in Georgia, that is not a concern.

NJF 16 (TangO)- 11-14 brix. A bit tamer than the ones from the farmer's market last year. But, it was better than what I got at the FM this year, which weren't sweet enough (11) and also had a weaker flavor. Lots of brown rot. First week of August, 2nd year, in-ground tree (sampled 4). No bug damage, but quite a lot of PLC.

Harko Nectarine- 16.5-21 brix. Both were small, but the 21 brix one was one of the best fruit I've had. Very strong (good) flavor with lots of sweet. The 2nd fruit was one I bagged and it wasn't as sweet, but was still nice. Aug 17-18, 2nd year, potted tree (sample- 2).

Winblo- 10-12 brix. It wasn't sweet enough, but it is probably because I didn't thin it enough. I'm actually surprised that it was able to ripen the fruit to an edible state, even if it wasn't sweet enough. The 2nd year potted tree is less than 4 feet tall with only 3 small branches, yet produced 20 fruit. I had to support the branches on upside down buckets to keep them from breaking...8/18-8/28.

White Lady- 13-14 brix. Nice, relatively mild but sweet. 2nd year, potted tree (sample- 4). 8/20-8/26.

Harrow Diamond- 17.5-21 brix. I'm not sure why this was so late, but it never softened, or dropped. One finally dropped in late August (a month after I expected it), so I picked both. One was still hard and I should have let it sit on the counter for a day or two. It was still very good. 8/22, 2nd year, potted tree (sample- 2).

Carolina Gold- 12-18 brix. Very good. Strong flavor. The wide brix range was manifest in both fruits- one side would be much sweeter than the other. 8/28, 2nd year, in-ground tree (sample- 2). Some scab, but seemed completely unaffected by PLC, even though it was right next to NJF 16, which had lots.

What do you think of the flavor of PF1? Obviously it's not as sweet (from your brix numbers) but specifically, I'm curious if the benefit of such an early peach is worth the somewhat inferior flavor in your opinion?

BTW, I see lots of doubles on my PF1 too, although not too many spilt pits in a normal year.

Did you mean Harko nectarine, instead of Harken?

Can you show me where PF varieties are later ripening than some listed for CA? Grandpa's chart shows Redhaven ripening in early August. In central CA it ripens in early July. My greenhouse is 2 weeks earlier than central CA.

I can find peaches that ripen from mid Sept, Fairtime, to early October, Kandi Korn, in central CA. How are you going to ripen those in MI? You aren't.

But my problem is those fruits are so late there are almost no reports on them.

I'm planning on keeping the PF1. Other than one or two 8's, most were in the 10-11 brix range. That isn't great, but it is still good when you haven't had fresh peaches for a while. Maybe I'll have a different opinion on it once I have lots of apricots at the same time- I picked my first 4 Tomcot right around this time (July 3rd), which were 15-16 brix.

One interesting thing I noticed this year is that most of my in-ground peach trees had bug damage, while none of my potted peaches had any. The potted peaches also missed out on the brown rot, but that isn't surprising due to their small size and good air/light penetration.

It is actually the reverse of what I saw with Apricots. All my potted ones had some pretty bad bug damage, but my one in-ground tree (Tomcot) had none. I'll keep an eye on this in future years to see if it continues.

Peaches and nectarine don't ripen to good eating quality in cool weather. Once the highs cool off quality goes south. So anything not ripe in September in MI is pushing things.

Apples like the cool fall weather. Not so with peach,nectarine, and pluots. They are strictly warm weather fruits.

Bob:

Thanks for a good report. Harko might be worth trying.

OK, I will stick to in range fruits. I suspect that winters are actually going to become colder, not warmer, as many think. My stone fruits first year in ground grew like crazy, probably too much, but the weather is the weather. Most are near 6 ft tall, even the ones cut to two ft. I have a lot of winter pruning to do. Nectaplum seems the best adapted even better than the Paul Friday tree. The Japanese beetles stayed off of it even though they love peach and plum. I had to grow a new central leader on it, yet it is as tall as the other trees. An impressive cultivar. Also it had to suffer through going back into dormancy as it was budding in March when it arrived, but the weather was still freezing here, so the buds all died, and it budded fine in April. It definitely responded the best to the new environment. It also is beautiful and looks great! I love the purple leaves.
I know you didn't care much for the fruit, but it's got to be better than store bought, and that with all the other positive aspects is a winner for me.

I'm planting another SpiceZee this winter. It's better than several others I fruited this year including Snow Queen and Sweet Bagel.

Indian Free is my favorite peach/nectarine. I got it up to the 24 brix range this year and it still had a little edge of tartness to it. I love it, and I'm a sucker for sweet fruit. I took one to one of my coworkers and told her it would be the best peach she had ever tasted, and despite her protests initially, she admitted I was correct. I love it.

Ok you all have convinced me. I'll try Indian Free. Almost anything is good at 24 brix, assuming I can reach that.

Thanks everyone including Scott for your usual excellent report.

Olpea, any recomendations? I am not far away from your location.

Yeah we were talking about timing and I posted a chart, it doesn't have all cultivars, but some from around a zone 6 environment. Grandpa's nursery where chart is from is in MI. Look in my other posts for the chart. A top 5 (Dave's Garden rating) hardy fruit tree nursery!
So if it's not at Adams, look at Grandpa's! Not a fantastic selection, but decent.
I think for me Indian Free is late enough. I have early, mid-season and late covered with my selections.
The other Andrew (Drew51)

Andrew and Andrew, I'm working off memory here, but I thought Indian Free was a late Sept. peach here. I remember it was the last peach of the season, later than Autumnstar (which is +43) for us. I thought Indian Free was a very late peach, something like a +60 here.

Assuming that's correct, I like both Autumnstar and O'henry for late peaches, which would theoretically ripen between Halehaven and Indian Free. Autumnstar ripens a bit later than O'henry (and is bigger) but there is some overlap in harvest. O'henry tastes a tad better than Autumnstar, but the difference is very very slight.

Scott

Scott

Thanks Scott! I wanted that peach for various reasons. Ripening time was not one, but it just so happens I have a hole at that time. Awesome!

It seems to me that this peach is not getting the attention that it deserves on this forum.

You know Andrew, I suspect you are quite right. A few years ago, I asked a commercial peach grower from this area what was his favorite flavored peach, and he said Loring.

The biggest criticisms I hear about it are winter tenderness and poor color (of course both have nothing to do w/ flavor).

On top of that, many modern peaches have Loring in their heritage. Sentry, Johnboy, Topaz, Salem (all of which I have planted or fruited).

I've refrained from commenting on Loring because I haven't fruited it yet, but Johnboy and Topaz I've fruited and are very good.

I expect Loring will do well here, it was developed in MO (Mountain Grove) around the time Redhaven was developed in MI.

To me, there isn't that wide a range of qualities between yellow peaches on a good year. I was surprised and pleased with the lemony flavor of Earnie's choice this year, something I didn't notice before so I wonder how it will taste next year and is this a common occurance.

I have a Red Haven on my property that for some reason puts out a lot of perfect looking watery and bland fruit year after year but I even found a few perfect ones on it.

I do like a tree with large sized peaches, deep orange flesh that bears over a long period, like 3 weeks, without the last ones mushing out. Jonboy provides these year after year for me. Earnie's choice seemed to be done in little more than a week.

There are now some yellows coming out that are low-acid, so I guess they must be noticeably different but I like higher acid peaches so it's not likely a difference I will appreciate.

Messina has great red and orange colored flesh and is a very highly flavored peach. I'm beginning to believe it is a standout in its season as there were very few duds. But this was only it's third year of fruiting so I want to see how it does when the tree is fully sized up.

I ate a couple of Autumn Star this year that were promising- does have some acid to go with the sugar. It will have to be good to surpass Encore for a late though.

Coralstar is a peach that seemed so wonderful when I picked the fruit from a small tree but now seems to be just another fine large fruiting variety without great distinction as picked off a full sized tree. Maybe that's what happened with TangO but I need a couple more seasons with that one. It is at least a very distinctive peach for its texture and even though I wasn't that crazy about it this year my customers go ga ga for it.

Another one that seemed great from a small tree was Desiree- at least for such an early one. I will try to find room to put one where I can evaluate it as a mature tree.

White peaches that I liked this year were Manon, which seems to get very high sugar and good size for such an early peach and Lady Nancy which got huge and is the best textured white I've every tasted- nice melting flesh.

I loved having nectarines for most of peach season although most of the later varieties crack too much to be practical. Ambre was the exception but it's a young tree and didn't have a lot of fruit. I'm not even sure how much I like its flavor as it is a low acid type. Eastern Glo and Summer Beaut both seem almost as easy to grow as peaches and should be more widely utilized by people who want more snap than a peach is likely to provide.

By the way, I think you can call the sports of Loring to be pretty much the same peach but ripening at different times. No important other difference between Jonboy and Loring that I can discern.