Nectarines just better

I think for our family, by order of most to least favorite stone fruit I grow, it’s nectarines, sweet cherries, peaches, plums then apricots. I enjoy my Puget Gold cots but the others don’t seem to appreciate the subtle flavors but prefer the sweet in - your - face bold flavors of my other stone fruit varieties.

Oh well, more apricots for me.

Anthony

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I was raised in S. CA and my first fruit tree was an apricot that was a struggling tiny thing when my family moved to Topanga Canyon in 1963. The grey water pipe from the washing machine sprouted a leak near it and it began to grow and once it started bearing fruit I was hooked. I last picked fruit from that tree around 2010 when my father died- it was still robust and productive.

I have all the apricots I need again this year from an Alfred I’ve trained against the SE corner of my home (weird winter with a cold night in Feb destroyed the majority of its flower buds). The house is painted white and I treat the tree as a free form espalier, pruning it several times during summer and keeping it close to the wall without attachments. The fruit is divine- not better than my best nectarines by my rating, but in their own way, equally good- even to the ones I remember harvesting in Topanga.

I recently planted a Tomcot against the house that is only on the southern side (instead of being centered on a corner). It had 4 fruit this year and they were twice the size of the largest Alfreds, but lacked the high sugar.

I manage Apricots at several sites that I installed from my nursery. At favorable sites they are reasonably reliable producers but always subject to sudden death from cambium freeze- and of course, early spring, flower killing hard frosts. I guarantee trees for a year from my nursery and the fragility of apricots costs me dearly. I’m going to start charging a premium for bearing age trees because I lose so many- either right after transplanting or in the nursery.

I recommend folks in marginal areas with a useful sun exposed wall to employ it for growing apricots.

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Interesting - apricots don’t give me much trouble at all - when a late freeze doesn’t get them. And I do love them!

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Yes, I agree.

I have a small Redgold, but it hasn’t fruited yet. I’ve not tried Sunglo.

I thought I’d try to grow a little more “exotic” fruits to have a little more diversity for my customers (although of course nectarines really aren’t exotic, but they are for my area). I planted some nectarines even though none of the orchards around here grow them and one grower warned me against them. Another grower mentioned on his Website they were “no longer” growing nectarines, so there were some warning signs, commercially speaking. But I thought if I just managed them better, all would be well.

Economics has forced me to evaluate the various varieties and crops to sieve out those that cost money vs. make money. I more or less am starting to make the transition of growing for recreation (i.e. home growing with lots fruit exploring) vs. growing for an economically sustainable orchard. The last several weeks I’ve evaluated a lot of the orchard in this way and started to make some hard decisions.

I still plan to grow a few recreational type plants/trees, but right now I have too much of that and it takes too much labor to sustain.

Folks in my locale really don’t want adventure in fruit, so I’m a bit tired of trying. Most want just yellow round peaches, so that’s what I’ll grow.

I have persuaded enough customers to try and buy flat peaches and have a small following of customers after those, so they aren’t so hard to sell anymore, but I’ve had to give away a lot of fruit to do it.

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Aside from the late frosts, the two things that make them harder is that they suffer from sudden unexplained deaths (sometimes temp fluctuations?) in the NE and being early and tasty, they seem a bit more susceptible to animals swiping them. Most of the fruit-sellers at the farmers market have nectarines, often not good due to early picking and low brix. But I have never seen apricots there.

Nectarines are just as productive as peaches for me. I have to thin both a lot so I set the yield. Size is good as well if not too short on water. But then yield doesn’t matter to me it’s all about eating quality.

Apricots are good above 20 brix. Lately I’ve gotten up to 26 brix area. Even there they aren’t as good as the best nectarines.

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My nectarines are also more productive than peaches (including branches on the same combo trees) but my Puget Gold cot branches are the most productive of all.

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I had problems with size and production with nectarines until this year. My Mericrest is probably my most productive tree in terms of pounds of fruit produced, and Summer Beaut is also cranking out huge quantities. I had to spray a lot of disease control product to get the size up, I think that was holding back the size in past years.

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I have two Harglows, which I’d rather not, because I thought one had died so I got a replacement.

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Hmm, that’s interesting. I’ve not seen any nects competing w/ peach yield here yet. I’ve had peaches break scaffolds from too much fruit but nothing near that w/ nects. I’ve also sold some peaches weighing 3/4 lb. pound or more this year (which are really big peaches to be sure) but I’ve not seen nects approach anything near that weight.

Nects seem to be more finicky here with marginal weather. Maybe that’s part of the difference.

I have one Hardired which seems to be very productive for a nect (sets lots of fruit) but even then the fruit seems to be much smaller than peach.

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There are so many factors that influence fruit flavor beyond the Brix level. For apricots, in particular (and for many other fruits), aroma plays an important role in overall eating experience. Studies identified up to 26 odor-active compounds in apricots, including terpene alcohols, 2-phenylethanol, β-ionone, hexyl acetate, benzaldehyde, γ-octalactone, ®-γ-decalactone, (E)-β-damascenone, δ-decalactone, (R/S)-linalool, etc. Contributions of various compounds change significantly between different cultivars and ripeness levels, with a reduction in aldehyde and alcohol production along with an increase in ester production observed as fruit’s ripeness increases. As for sugars, apricots, for example, contain sucrose (the predominant sugar in apricots) along with glucose, fructose, maltose, sorbitol and raffinose. With that, the amount of fructose is especially important since it provides a high level of perceived sweetness relative to other sugars at the same concentration. In addition to sugars, the flavor of apricots is affected by multiple other chemical compounds, including phenolics, carotenoids, β-carotene, organic acids, etc. This enormous chemical complexity determines the fruit’s complexity of flavor, as perceived by a human, and, on top of that, the perception of flavor varies significantly between individuals.

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I would agree that most nectarines are tastier than peaches, however there are some exceptional peaches that are every bit as good as if not better than the best nectarines! Here is a great example, June Pride peach, very low fuzz, deep dark red color, more fragrant than any nectarine I grow, and most importantly, very intense peach/ nectarine flavor! This peach is a cross of O Henery and June Lady clingstone and is the best fruit I grow in front of Flavor Supreme, Flavor King, Flavortop, and Arctic Glo nectarines. It is somewhat of a secret over here and is never mentioned, but the flavor is intensely sweet and rich!

The dark red ones are on Lovell root and severely water deprived, the fruit on right is on Nemeguard root and has more water but still not a lot. Brix 27, and 25 respectively, really awesome peaches, worthy of challenging any nectarine!!

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I should add that my Arctic Jay nectarines have been 28 to 30 brix, I much prefer the more intense June Pride peaches, just more flavor!

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Wow, you’ve given me quite a bit of the information I’ve been looking for since I first purchased a refractometer. Thank you!

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They look like Indian Free which is one of my favorite peaches that rivals nectarines to my palate. Are thy only grown in the warmer zones? Silver Gem is a nectarine that reminds me of Indian Free and is quite early.

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Both peaches and nectarines are good to me but my preference is nectarines.

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Wow those look great, I have to get me one of those June Prides! We talked about this before. I put it on my want list. Oh cool, the patent is expired!

Me too, but I only have ever grown two trees! I wish I had more to talk about!
I have to try and graft some on. My Nectaplum produces giant nectarines, the largest of my stone fruit. Arctic Glo is my favorite fruit. I think I’m just going to develop other nectarines from that one that ripen at different times. I have to cross twice to get back to nectarines. I like it so much, not sure why I’m looking for others? Feedback from friends and family is the same, best they ever had. They should be ripe in about 2 weeks. The tree is loaded to the gills, I should have thinned more. Not that they are spaced bad, just so many of them.

I have three seedlings of the first cross, now to grow them out. I burned the leaves badly bringing them outside. I thought I had it acclimated. It made the trees branch, and they lost their leaves. Growing well now. One in ground two in pots. All three are crosses with Indian Free and Arctic Glo


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My question is if you have nectarines that need thinning why don’t you set the yield?

Well sure. However my experience is that higher brix improves flavor beyond just added sweetness. Most people that like fruit like really sweet fruit but only if it has high flavor, that includes me. The flavor can come as an acidic component or from non acidic flavor components.

That’s very high brix for a peach. Maybe it’s a nectarine in peach clothing…lol The fruit looks fabulous…!!

Can you fill us in more on your growing techniques and growing conditions: soil, watering regime, etc? How many yrs have you been growing with a water deficit and where did you first learn about this technique? How has your fruit improved?

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I have a Shuhou nectarine, and Fantasia. Apparently Shuhou is the most widely grown here, closely followed by Fantasia. The Shuhou is quite late, September harvest.
I’ve had them both two years, and this is the first year letting them fruit. I foolishly followed some advice to pick all the blossoms off. They grow so fast there’s no need to do that, the few fruit I have are the blossoms I missed!

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These are rated zones 5 to 9 and on the DWN cold country and house favorite fruits. 900 to 1000 chill hours per commercial catalogue. I bet it would do fine over there but I could be wrong. It is at its best with lots of sunshine. Indian Free is more tart than these, but I like them too! Your Silver Gem sounds wonderful, enjoy!

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