Which shows how much passion you have for your business. I know the feeling.
Which varieties are you talking about?
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Thanks Alan.
Some of the patents which have recently expired are Risingstar (very productive good peach), Starfire (ripens with Redhaven and about equal to Redhaven in all accounts, except maybe cold hardiness), Redstar (another Redhaven window peach, but very susc. to bac. spot), Blazingstar (every bit as good as it’s window partner Johnboy, but more productive, but also smaller. Blazingstar can be winter tender, but so is Johnboy), Allstar (a very productive peach for it’s window, but can get mealy in hot weather if left on the tree till soft, but counter ripens just fine), Coralstar (a nice peach, but very unproductive), Blushingstar (a mediocre white peach imo, and susc. to bac. spot), Glowingstar (a good replacement for the Cresthaven window. Smaller than Cresthaven, but more productive and a lot less bac. spot).
Likewise, quite a few of the PF varieties have expired patents, but the only one worth noting to me is PF25 which ripens just before Encore. It’s much more productive than other peaches in that window, except maybe Redskin, but Redskin ( fine tasting peach) colors so poorly, it puts customers off a bit. PF25 is about equal in productivity to Glowingstar, but maybe a tad more productive. Both are better than PF27a and PF28-007, which only crop in the best of circumstances.
Glenglo (a great early peach) of course isn’t a PF or Stellar variety, but is also off patent now.
All the aforementioned peaches taste good, with the exception of Blushingstar (as you know I’m not a big fan of whites unless they have some acid, or are super sweet). Risingstar and Blazingstar are perhaps a couple of the slightly better tasting peaches of the bunch, but the most determining factor in that area for me is how much rainfall the trees receive about two weeks prior to harvest.
I doubt your customers would verbalize productivity as an attribute they are seeking, but I bet they would be really happy with a tree loaded with fruit to pick, vs. picking just a few peaches off unproductive varieties. I know I am really liking productive trees more vs. the alternative, except during thinning time.
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I had budded a peach to a pluot seedling (late summer 2016) i had in a pot. Both buds took…they both looked good this spring so i tried to force them early (back in early March)…nothing…the seedling pluot of course sent up probably 30 new shoots so i just let it go…moved it to the corner of the yard because i had no use for it…went out there the other day…some new growth of the pluot is 18 inches tall//it looked like a bush…i pushed all that aside and holy cats…the remaining bud i left (the other one i cut off trying to force the lower one maybe month+ ago) had started growing. Normally they never take that long to push.
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That’s true, but like you, sometimes I see sleepy eye buds take a long time to show any movement. I’ve found moving the new rootstocks before the bud wakes up to be the hardest on them. It seems to sap the energy of the rootstock, but we still get a very good number of takes when we have to move them.
Wow: Glenglo finally off patent. Let the pirating begin!
Funny you don’t like Blushingstar. My favorite white back East here.
I will refrain from a long grouchy post about attitudes towards the common pool, because I am sure you are being jovial. That being said, it’s not piracy or negative connotated to share post patent wood; it is a right of Americans (and some other countries) to utilize the public domain. It’s a right that us under attack by corporations as well!
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Olpea, would you mind recommending a Peach for me here in Connecticut
Zone 7a that is productive and flavorful without the susceptibility to Bacterial
Spot? I don’t mind the maintainance, (I follow Alan’s spray schedule with additional Captan
sprays for Sooty Blotch and Fly Speck) but my Winblo
and O’Henry’s are already symptomatic of BS
Lady Nancy for a white?
People need to realize that your issues with set are entirely regional and do not match my northeast experiences in any way. None of the varieties you list as being shy croppers have ever failed to overset on any years that aren’t just crop failure seasons- that being twice in the last 25 years.
This year Jonboy and Coralstar require endless thinning as usual. I’m only getting a break on nectarines which generally set pretty lightly this year, but most have all I need to fill the tree. Honey Royale is a notable exception and is one that seems not to like to set much fruit here based on it’s three baring seasons in my orchard- but I may figure out how to coax more fruit out of it with judicious summer pruning that removes the excessively vigorous water sprouts that this one really likes to put out in a crazy way- and those vigorous shoots just don’t set many flower buds, which are mostly on the droopy thin wood of which it scarcely produces.
There is one peach that didn’t set evenly through the tree and has been a problem- Gold Dust. But it is a West Coast tree and californians are known for being flaky.
Wow Alan, that’s a pretty amazing difference you mention in the first paragraph. I wouldn’t have expected such a stark difference.
I think I feel some confidence here with my observations, in my locale, which I suppose supports your observation that friut differences are local. Something which I completely agree.
Some of my comments are based on my long term backyard observations, but many are based on admittedly shorter term observations of my other orchard. I will say my orchard is very conducive to making comparisons since I generally have many different varieties of several mature trees next to one another to compare. Since I’ve been harvesting these mature trees the last few years in the larger orchard, I can’t help notice these differences.
That’s what I was commenting on. I’m removing what I deem losers here, and increasing more productive trees. Sorry my recs didn’t translate for the NE.
Many of your recs do, but not the reliability of fruit set. I find your observations very interesting but I’m never greatly surprised about regional variables.
Yes, I am a supporter of sharing in the public domain. I support the concept of limited patents, but do not care for club apples.
My use of the term “pirating” was indeed just jovial hyperbole.
Patents have always been problematic politically- without his primary investor pulling strings in London to get the approval of a patent, which then was a much more political process than even today, James Watt would never have profited from his toil to make the steam engine useful to industry. And he had created perhaps the most important invention for bringing about the industrial revolution.
Balancing the reward to the inventor while also reducing the monopoly of a good idea is a very delicate surgery (politics is more akin to butchery)- back then it took decades to bring a lot of the great industrial inventions to profitability, which is often the case with fruit tree “inventions” as well. By the time Honeycrisp became a true rock star its patent had expired. The blood, sweat, tears and money that went into its creation were barely returned.
I will not begin a discussion of the bullying tactics of corporations to distort patent law to entirely fit the needs of their highest profits at the expense of the public good. That is for another forum, or the lounge.
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Lady Nancy is very rot-susceptible for me. I’m not surprised about BS on O’Henry but am on Winblo, I never had problems with it. Maybe its too close to the O’Henry.
Re: club apples, once the patents expire the only protection they have is on the first person in the chain sharing it. I doubt enforcement could go beyond that as they are violating the spirit of patent law otherwise. So I expect they will be in circulation eventually.
I have two other peaches with very light set this year- Messina and Heath Cling- and they are growing side by side so I wonder if it is the tree or the spot.
Some very good points in your post Alan. Very thoughtful and appreciated. I’m just a backyard guy, but I can appreciate the need to reward those who invest themselves, their time and their money to give us better varieties.
Thanks. I bet your appreciation of their toil will increase as new varieties are introduced that serve you well now that you are a grower. When I started, there were no good really early nectarines, now Silver Gem seems like a huge winner based on the only harvest I’ve enjoyed. And the Victoria peach gives me high brix yellow peaches into Oct which is wonderful and not available just a few years ago. Goldrush apple has been around for a while, but only about 40 years. I would be lost without that one to turn to in latest winter into spring. It is a product of the Purdue breeding program that never brought in much money.
Messina sets light for me, to the point I’m considering removing my two trees of it.
For my observations, it’s pretty much the variety, not the spots. I have noticed a little difference in peach trees on the lower end being a little lighter set, probably because cooler air settling. But for my observations, it’s mostly variety.
For instance on one row it starts out (at the upper/higher end) with one Sweet Breeze (the others are at the bottom of the previous row) which had a good fruit set this year, followed by two new JulyPrince, then one Glowingstar with very good fruit set, then four Cresthaven with very poor fruit set, then two Messina with poor fruit set, then two PF25 with excellent fruit set, then two Redskins with excellent fruit set, then two PF27A with very poor fruit set, then five PF28-007 with essentially no fruit, then five Encore with good fruit set.
I have 4 years of observations on fruit set with these trees and for the most part, it’s been pretty consistent, with the exception of one year in which everything set heavy.
Part of the difference between your observations and mine, might also result from different soil (and my extensive use of mulch) in addition to different weather patterns.
Tuff,
Winblo gets bac. spot for me, as does O’Henry. Lady Nancy is pretty clean. In terms of taste, I like Lady Nancy, but I prefer Raritan Rose to Lady Nancy. Raritan Rose seems to get a little more sugar and still has the acid. I prefer Spring Snow to both of them. It’s a very small peach. This year Spring Snow was pretty light on fruit set, but this is the first time that’s happened. I like the tree so much, I added 16 more trees of it (budded last fall and moved this spring).
I like it because, it’s unusual for a white peach to taste that good to me and very unusual for that to occur in such an early peach. Customers are also pretty thrilled with the peach.
As Alan mentions, Silver Gem is a really good white nect., imo.
Are you growing Heath Cling at any other sites to compare?
I was inspired to get a Heath after sampling yours (better than Victoria IMO, though I know you think that’s crazy). My HC has a very light set, but it is only 2nd leaf, maybe 5 peaches on a 8’ tall, 5’ wide tree. In comparison, the Carnival next to it (planted at the same time) has twice that on a tree half the size. Rootstock is probably responsible for the size difference- Nemaguard for HC and Citation for Carnival.
Is spring snow earlier than S. Gem?
This is the first time I’ve had trouble with Messina and Heath when other varieties set well.
Heath Cling has always set well for me. Its about right, well-covered and you don’t need to thin like crazy on it.
The main problem I have with it is it is a very late peach and the moths really like it (they like all the older peach varieties more it seems - not sure why). I think this causes the fruits to drop before they are fully ripe. Either that or they both get a lot of moths and drop early too much.