So I checked my trees again - Hale Haven has the most advanced bloom (some buds are unfolding to bloom) followed by Blushingstar and Belle of Georgia.
Red Haven, Indian Blood Cling, Gloria, Intrepid, and Gold Prince have the least advanced buds followed by Encore, Contender, Black Boy and Elberta which are showing pink at the tips maybe a little further advanced on some… Trees like Desiree, Victoria and Coral star are well advanced showing lots of pink. Reliance is somewhere in the middle.
I am not sure if the size/age of the tree affects how earlier a tree buds/blooms but Red Haven, Indian Blood Cling, Gloria, Intrepid, and Gold Prince are all small trees, all going on second year planted except for the Red Haven which is going on third year planted.
So it looks like the winners this year for late bloom are Gloria and Red Haven. Both have the tightest buds out of all my trees at this stage,some of my other trees are in full bloom. The others mentioned previously - Indian Blood Cling, Intrepid, Encore, Contender, Black Boy and Elberta look good but a step ahead of Gloria and Red Haven in bud/bloom progression. Both Gloria and Red Haven are small trees, not sure if that has any bearing on blossom time.
I’m in 5b and I plan to graft Redskin, GA is pretty far south of me. I would expect them to be way ahead of me. It’s half Red Haven developed right here in MI.
Indian Cling is a late bloomer and blooms for a long period of time. Yumm Yumm nectarine blooms a few days before my early bloomers like Saturn and Flat Wonderful. Nonetheless, it never failed to produce a crop for me. According to my records, I harvested Autumnprince on Sebtemer 16th last year. These are my 2017 unedited comments about Autumnprince “A: very delicious with lots of acid in a good way; on the same leage as Redhaven and Lorings; Maybe could’ve left few more days for more sugar but it was excellent.” The tree was planted in 2014 and it produced few fruits in 2016. It got some PLC last year but later recovered after the wet season ended.
Olpea, this is a real ‘newbie’ grafter question . . . . But, what determines which variety blooms first on a multi-grafted tree? The variety of the scion . . . or the rootstock?
I don’t have experience with multigrafted trees, so I can’t speak specifically to your question from experience. But I do know that some peach rootstocks have a vary minor influence on bloom. However, it’s mostly the variety which determines when it blooms (assuming we are not factoring in weather, of course).
I’ve grown peaches of a given variety on a lot of different rootstocks, and haven’t noticed any difference in bloom dates for a given variety The variety is what mostly makes the difference, unless you have some very non-traditional/unusual rootstock.
I walked through the peach orchard just yesterday and wrote down the fruit bud development and how many fruit buds were alive (after two separate occasions of -9F temperatures this past winter) because I’ve sort of had to do my own research for my area to determine which varieties crop well in marginal years (i.e. most years). I wanted to get this done yesterday because we are supposed to get down in the teens tomorrow morning, which could remove a lot of fruit buds in various stages of development. So I wanted to collect some information before that happened.
The short of it is there are peach trees in anywhere from full pink to green calyx. Generally there is about a week’s spread between various peach cultivars, with quite a bit more spread from the first to the last bloom (sometimes threes weeks or more). So it can make a significant difference in terms of cropping potential in marginal climates like mine.
I haven’t tried either one of those peaches. Rio Oso Gem is supposed to be one of the more bacterial spot sensitive peaches. Those kind of peaches don’t work for me.
I’d forgotten about Late Crawford. @scottfsmith didn’t you grow it at some point? Anyone else growing it and can say anything about it?
I grew Early Crawford and it was exceptionally small. I think Scott hypothesized the Early Crawford going around is not actually Early Crawford, but a seedling of Early Crawford, because it didn’t fit the description of some of the old peach references.
Matt, Rio Oso Gem has some latent virus in it so it is never very vigorous. I think that makes it more susceptible to bacterial spot and decline as well. My tree got borers and didn’t quite pull out so its gone. Late Crawford also declined but I re-grafted it last year and it should fruit again this year. Along with borers most of my peach stocks are around 15 years and peaches live 15-20 years on average in my climate or so I have heard.
In terms of flavor etc I find them both excellent. Late Crawford took several years to be good, it was slow to get going. I never got too many Rio Oso Gem first due to bacterial spot and then due to decline. One of these years I will re-add it though…
I just put in the 35-007 last year. I took a gamble as to see if that late variety would actually be a good peach. I’m on a 5B area as you are so it gives me a little hope that I picked one that would work and taste good here. I’ve got Contender and Redhaven that had been good in my orchard. I wanted a later ripening variety after those two were done. The Redhaven and Contender keep me busy processing them fast enough to keep the fruit from being ruined. A month or so break was what I was looking for YET having it be a very good tasting peach. The FF variety looked like it would fit that ripening slot but I was unsure of how it actually tasted.
I like the taste of PF35-007. It ripens +40 here. Contender ripens +21 here.
Matt, all three of those peaches ripen after Encore/O’Henry here. Encore/O’Henry is +33 here. Laurol is +38, Autumnstar +43, Victoria +45.
Laurol is a very good tasting peach here, except that it is fairly susc. to bac. spot, but not so bad as to make the fruit unmarketable.
One thing which may be affecting the flavor of Laurol there is that it is an extremely productive peach and will size peaches even under heavy load. If the tree is over-cropped, which is easy to do, I suspect this would be a significant drag on flavor.
Scott, Once Late Crawford got going, how was the productivity? Size? Also, I know you don’t grow Redhaven, but in terms of ripening time, can you give a reference of Late Crawford to some other well known peach?
Its a bit on the small side and was never very productive for me. It is known to be unproductive. Its around Sweet Bagel / Indian Cling / Oldmixon Free / Rio Oso Gem period… late but not super late is what I think of that period as.
