I don’t at all mind “seconds” as they call them at the orchard. Don’t want to derail this thread to much, but when we were at Reed Valley last year, we were able to get Honeycrisp apple seconds for $1/lb, as opposed to $2+/lb for firsts. We stocked up on those “inferior” apples.
When our fruit trees start producing, I’m not going to be too tore up about imperfect fruit.
I have a lot of bird pecked fruit but its not in the lugs. I threw it on the ground along with the over ripe fruit and other culls. The birds seem to prefer the fruit at the top of the trees and I have quite a bit of bird damage, but I’m not sure which bird is the culprit.
One vendor of bird distress units has some type of “try and buy” program and I’m going to try one next year. Its expensive, but if it flops I get my money back.
Had a lot of small, deformed fruit on my contender this year. I have a 8-9 year old tree that is not producing most years. The one year it did produce; the fruit was some of the best tasting i have grown. For this reason, i have held onto the tree but i’m thinking of pulling it since i believe the lack of chill hours in my area is affecting the fruit quality/yield. Sense the winters here seems to be getting shorter and shorter, I can’t see things getting better in most future years.
Can anyone suggest a low chill late peach tree? I’m considering Red Baron and Pride series.
In the order of ripening:
Red Baron
Bonita
August Pride
Redwing
Sweet Bagel
Fairtime
I was wondering is all you use to spray your Contender peaches just dormant oil and copper spray? You mentioned a cover spray twice a month so I wondered what spray that was you were using?
I have two Contender peach trees and just picked most of the fruit off earlier this week. I will probably pick the remaining fruit today or tomorrow. I had to make some preserves with them since I had some many peaches this year. Fourth leafing. They are very delicious peaches. I have a Red Haven peach tree and the peaches are good but not as tasty as the Contenders, IMO.
I rotate different materials. Mostly Assail, Avaunt and Danitol plus Captan, Indar or Pristine
The Southeast Peach Management and Culture Guide is my main source of information.
Just saw this thread. I’ve been growing Contender for a while and I like the peach. Contender ripens in a window where there generally hasn’t been a lot of rain for a while, so it’s a good tasting peach here. It does have a lot of fur, which I don’t like, and it doesn’t color well.
My one tree produces very large fruit, but it’s a mature tree. Contender ripens in the Loring/Bounty window here. Both Loring and Bounty won’t produce fruit in a marginal spring. Contender is very productive in a poor year. It was one of just a handful of peach trees which had a full crop in my back yard this year. It was the most productive.
I am slowly replacing my Bounty trees with trees supposedly more productive. So far I’ve replaced some Bounty trees with PF 19-007, but the rest of the Bountys I’ll probably replace with Contender.
Curious Olpea - are there other peach trees you grow like Contender - they produce in marginal years where others will not? Could you share the varieties if there are others?
Perhaps nothing quite as bullet proof as Contender (although I don’t have a lot of experience with the other North Carolina peaches Challenger and Intrepid, which are supposed to be very frost tolerant).
Here are some of the more regular croppers which taste pretty good in my locale. These aren’t necessarily my favorite peaches, just peaches which taste good and crop regularly in poorer years, without any other significant baggage.
Earlystar
Risingstar
Saturn
Maybe Clayton, but not enough experience to conclude anything certain
PF9A-007
Redhaven
TangOs-Note some rot issues some years for me, even under a commercial spray program
Challenger?
Allstar
Intrepid?
PF19-007?
Contender
Baby Crawford
Madison
Redskin
Encore
I’m a big Contender fan! About 12% of my trees are Contenders which produced about 75% of my peach crop this year.
In my area, they normally produce loads of peaches when other varieties fail. Its the #1 commercial peach in NC for a good reason.
Red Haven at around 950 chill hours also makes a good crop here in most years. Its also one of Contender’s parents.
Lots of good high chill hour peaches peaches from NCSU, but they ripen pretty close together. Most require over 1000 chill hours which is very unusual. Contender and Carolina Gold are my favorites. Carolina Gold is based on a late blooming clingstone peach from Spain. A new NCSU peach called Montgomery Gold is similar to Carolina Gold but a little later
Here is a good list of some NCSU high chill peaches with descriptions
https://yancey.ces.ncsu.edu/peachtreevarietydescription/
Thanks Olpea - I am at the stage where I am just trying to get crops of peaches - any peaches. I have Redhaven, Tangos, Intrepid, Contender and Encore. But Contender is the only one that is really big enough to produce. Surprisingly my Elberta set better than Contender this year.
For the last three years I had a Contender in a fabric pot, and it was the only one giving me peaches. This year, I planted it in the ground and promised some scion wood to someone, and the dang thing is trying to die on me while the other peaches are all going gangbusters on growth. Naturally.
Seems like sometimes trees have to get really mature to see how they are really going to produce. I have a Carolina Gold in my backyard which really hasn’t produced all that well. This year it was one of a few that actually produced decently in my backyard, the others being Contender, Baby Crawford, Encore and Earlystar.
Contender is a good tasting peach, but it’s not as good as others in it’s window, like Loring. Still Contender tastes good enough I have no reservations about selling it. Again, I think what helps it is that it’s generally been dry and hot enough when Contender ripens, that it has decent sugar. From my one tree, it seems to be very vigorous and has a straight up growth pattern, which makes it harder to manage compared to other more spreading growth pattern peach trees. As mentioned, it’s a very fuzzy peach, so it’s got a few negatives.
All that said, it’s been a winner for me for decent fruit quality and very reliable fruit production.
I get excellent coloring on my Contenders. They have such a nice red blush when they are getting ripe. I have had very good luck with the crop output. They taste really good and have a nice peach taste with a lot of run down your chin juice I like eating fuzzy peaches.In fact so much that I am doing some canning and peach preserves with them. The peach preserve recipes I find all seem to be pretty much the same. I am still looking though.
Thank you for this information. I will try and find that spray information. I maybe did not either spray them with the right sprays or not spray them enough. I had a lot with the specks on them and also a lot with the bug bites and small white worms inside.
Mine look about like the pic of Blueberrys. A lot of yellow, if they are the least bit shaded. Sometimes there will even be a little green at the stem end even though they are soft. I’ve noticed some of the old varieties do that even worse. Of course it doesn’t affect flavor at all, but does make it harder to sell.
Even long time customers will sometimes comment about stuff like that. Flavor is the most important thing, but people also desire their fruit to look beautiful.
The industry has it flipped around. The industry idea is that appearance is the most important thing and if there is some flavor with it, that’s a bonus.
In reality both are important to customers, but if there is a choice of one or the other, repeat customers want flavor.
I agree completely! I see a slow change where some customers focus on taste rather than looks. These folks also seem to be willing to pay more money for better fruit.
Peach consumption per person has declined substantially over the past 10 years. I believe the poor tasting peaches normally sold in supermarkets are the reason for the decline. Peaches are one area where the small growers like ourselves have an advantage over the huge grower. I’m learning that lots of folks will drive long distances and pay high prices for good peaches. We see a lot of customers return week after week for peaches.
Unfortunately, good apples are more common in the supermarket so at least in my area, apples just picked from the tree do not create the same demand or frenzy as peaches just picked from the tree.
I believe smaller packages and higher prices may be smart for my peaches next year.
I swore growing up I didn’t like peaches and essentially all stone fruit. Sure, I ate canned peaches in syrup but I figured it was the added sugar. I retried them as an adult at the farmer’s market and it was like tasting an entirely different fruit.
Absolutely true. I doubt I could count the amount of customers who indicated they don’t like peaches, only to find they like them when they try a decent peach fresh. So many customers are amazed at a decent tree ripened peach, that they give them away as gifts. Seriously, so many of my customers tell me they give our peaches away as gifts! I hardly understand it.
It leaves me baffled, but it’s nothing magic, just pick peaches anywhere near ripe, shun peaches inside the canopy, and shun the few peach varieties which don’t build any sugar.
I’m sure I sound like a sage with those comments, but I hope anyone doesn’t take it that way. Hell, in so many ways, I feel like I’m wet behind the ears.
I don’t know how long I’ll grow commercially. Certainly, I don’t expect anyone to take it over from me, so when I’m done with my orchard, my orchard is done.
But I have learned folks will go to great lengths to get a good peach.
I agree with you about people eat with their eyes. People believe apples have to look like Red Delicious apples, all deep red and shiny. Peaches have to look red with very little yellow or orange. The old peaches were not red but mostly yellow. I want something that tastes good not looking great and being tasteless. I think of the Red Delicious apple of today-tastes like soft cardboard. HORRIBLE!