Mericrest is spot susceptible in my climate which makes the fruits small. The taste is excellent though. I am trying out 5 other modern nectarines and so far it’s looking like some others will be sizing up better and will be better overall for me, but I need more years. This year it looks like I will have 4 of the new ones fruiting.
In your first post to this thread you indicated that you have experience with both Hardired and Mericrest.
Well, I did have them both in my nursery and planted both of them about 25 years ago in my orchard, but it was before I used Indar so I never got any useable fruit. I sold the Hardired tree in my orchard but kept the Mericrest, but had lost track of which was which. From descriptions I’ve deduced that the one still in my orchard is probably Merricrest.
OK, thanks for the clarification.
I have Mericrest, Nectacrest, and Crimson Gold. I thought i had an Independence. But based off of this :
In thinking it’s probably not.
All 4 set a decent amount of flowers with the falsely labeled Independence setting the most.
Thanks to everyone who replied
I said I wasn’t going to do any more nects or peaches, but recent discussion here makes me think it might be possible if I can put the tree in a good location
Yours look about like mine right now (size). I have a seedling nectarine (probably store bought California fruit) that has about a dozen nectarines on it right now. It flowered last year too. Maybe it’ll end up being something good. It’s in the ground (vs my other potted nects). My Raspberry Red has plenty of fruit, but i need to thin it some.
I just hacked out my Raspberry Red. Too small and tart. It’s going to soon be a Honey series tree.
Ouch- I just grafted it yesterday. Hopefully you mean it is too tart as in “only 18 brix!” 
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It’s got enough brix. Still very tart. Drew’s kind of fruit. I enjoy sweet/tart but there are better flavored fruits I can grow and they taste way better dried.
They sound awesome. Love the red flesh. Full of anthocyanins …probably live to 150 
Sugars can be fixed with a bowl of cane sugar and some maple syrup 
My kind too. Where is it from and who sells it?
If you can grow it up there, Rob, I should be able to grow it here
I bought Raspberry Red from Raintree a couple years ago,but it looks like they are sold out right now. Brady
I don’t think they ship at this time of year
Right now I’m leaning toward Mericrest on Citation, but I’ll probably have to wait til next spring to get it
Yes, probably like Arctic Glo, although that one is so sweet, most don’t think it’s an acid fruit, at least here. Yeah don’t try Indian Free again, that one has a lot more acid than anything I have tried, if that is not your cup of tea. Yeah I’m going to try Raspberry Red for sure. It’s a CRFG cultivar. They have a lot of very interesting stone fruit!
Last year was the first year I got stone fruit and I had about 80 fruit, and that was no where near enough. I didn’t have any left for freezing or drying. All my friends wanted some, it was gone in no time!
I accidentally came across a power point presentation by Bill Shane MSU) which might be of interest for folks on this thread. Part of the power point lists winter damage of peach and nect cultivars, after the temps of -12 to -18 for the 2014 winter in Michigan. It shows both fruit bud loss, and in a separate table, tree (wood) damage.
I thought the whole article very interesting and helpful. It even discusses various pruning times and the various benefits of each.
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Mericrest not productive for me here in the southern Rockies, although certainly high quality. Survivability was fine, but whatever special ability it had to actually produce in inclement conditions was marginal to non-existent.
Very useful article
They sure picked the right winter to study!
I found the information on pruning very educational, too
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