Valley Sweet mostly runs 18-22 brix. That’s high for a peach but not a nectarine. My buddy did have some Valley Sweet outdoors on very shallow soil this yr that he said went 26 brix. I didn’t get to taste those.
Scott, please excuse my ignorance, as probably you’ve already described this elsewhere. Of your stone fruit, how many are separate trees and how many are grafts on other varieties? Also, how do you obtain trees/scions for all these varieties?
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FN
Valley Sweet was a good choice if the Brix runs 18-22. I got a Foster peach tree from Scott’s wood and it had ten fruits this year. Unfortunately, some critters got them all last week. I will have to wait another year to get the chance to taste it along with my TangOs… The good thing is that my O’Henry is full of fruits but I will have to wait until September to harvest them. BTW, I got a branch of Honey Royale on a Chinese Sweet Pit Cot tree that I am babying it right now. I don’t want to loose this special nectarine because I want to re-graft it to a larger stock next year.
Tony
Hi Stan, most of the peaches are standalone trees but I have some backups of varieties on other trees. They are very closely planted, 3’ apart in many cases. I obtained the trees/scions from many different sources, most of the rare ones were either from the CRFG scion swaps or from the ARS germplasm repository.
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Tony, the sweetness of Foster attracts the predators like you would not believe. Every year I am fighting something over them, this year its mainly birds and bees.
Scott,
I have a couple Early Crawford trees and checked them today. It’s still not ready here, although getting closer. It’s weird the way our season seems to start out earlier than yours, then at some point your season jumps ahead.
The fruit of Early Crawford is very small. So small in fact, I doubt I’ll be able to sell them, so I’ll probably remove the trees.
I’ve had a few nectarines this year. The big standout for me so far is Silver Gem.
In terms of new and different peaches, I’ve tried a couple California cling peaches for the first time this year (Vinegold and Babygold #5). They are kind of interesting because they are different. Sweet, but the texture is just like the chewy texture of the NJF flat peaches. It’s not what you expect when you bite into a big round peach. I didn’t have enough to sell and not sure if people would like them or not.
Yeah, Silver Gem was a mindblower here as well and seems to be early enough to reduce pest issues a great deal. I had much more stinkbug dimples with later fruiting types in the area where my experimental orchard is (too many wild brambles growing among the rocks and boulders in between trees). Rich May and Gold Dust peaches were the other varieties that have me extremely excited about a huge improvement in early offerings in my orchard. This year I got a good sampling and next could potentially provide a full crop.
Olpea, were your Silver Gems fairly small? Mine certainly were, but I don’t care because I don’t sell them. Those who I shared them with didn’t care either, though. People just loved it. If they tried them they’d buy them.
Alan,
So far all of my nectarines have been small, which has been a bit of a disappointment to me. As I recall, Fruitnut mentioned he could grow some 3"+ nectarines but mine did not approach anything near that big, even with the wet summer we had.
I’ve just harvested a few varieties this year. Carene (nothing special), Silver Gem, Hardired (a little bit tart), Honeyblaze (not to my liking because it’s sub-acid). I have a rootstock that produced some 2.5" nectarines and Fantasia looks like it will produce some 2.5" but all the rest were pretty small. Maybe there are some bigger nects out there.
The biggest thing is trying to get a decent looking nect. People, even at most farmer markets, generally buy the first time based on appearance. Of course one can give out samples (and I do that some) which will sell good tasting fruit, regardless of appearance, but most people are willing to try only big round peaches which are blemish/spot free. They won’t buy donuts at all unless you give them one to try, then they’ll those and many times ask for more the next week. Nects are far from blemish/spot free and are hard to sell. I can see why most growers around here don’t grow nects. I doubt I’ll plant anymore new ones myself.
You won’t like Honey Blaze unless you can get the brix up to at least 18 and better low 20s.
Some varieties have approached 4 inches but they won’t be that big under deficit water. Upper Honey Blaze are probably 3+ inches. Lower higher brix not over 2.5. HB is med size not a larger nectarine.
The upper on Citation with a large old root system good at gathering water. Lower on young K1 barely growing.
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Thats an impressive difference fruitnut. I don’t see the lower case much due to the amount of water we usually get here.
Re: nectarines, so far all of the new ones I am growing are bigger than Mericrest at least. They are small compared to peaches but at least they are bigger than golf balls. I have Fantasia and they look reasonably big, along with Sunglo, Summer Beaut, and Flavortop. These trees are only in their 2nd year and have only a couple fruits so they should be getting bigger as the trees mature.
Olpea,
Starkbros is offering a Royal Giant Nectarine. You may give it a shot.
Tony
Scott, when can I expect my Early Crawford’s to plump up? They are small and as hard as rocks!
My Blushingstar are still on the small side.
Fruitnut,
It’s not that the Honeyblaze didn’t taste sweet (they were sweet) it’s just that mine didn’t have enough acid for me. Perhaps you are suggesting water deficit concentrates acid and sugar. Still I’m just not that hip on sub-acid peaches/nects. I just got through picking Flavrburst (another sub-acid) and although sweet, weren’t that exciting for me.
I think this is the reason I generally don’t prefer white peaches, although there are a few out there with lots of flavor, but most of them just have lots of perfume and lack flavor IMO.
I think Fruitnut has a point in that low acid nectarines just aren’t that good/interesting tasting if they are in the 10-15 brix range. I wasn’t at all impressed with the first couple Honey Blaze I got from Stop and Shop (if you look closely, there is often a cultivar printed on the side of the shipping box). But I did find a few in the batch with higher brix (maybe 18-19) which were actually pretty good. It’s hard to imagine it not being even better in the low 20’s. Maybe it is the concentration of flavor, as you describe.
Mrs G, I expect you are a couple weeks behind me and mine are ripening now (maybe 1/4th ripe at this point). Mine didn’t grow much at the end, and I even thinned them well.
@Olpea, I had assume Early Crawford would get bigger over the years but it hasn’t changed size. We are of a like mind about moving on to other varieties. For something similar you might try Kit Donnell, the CRFG bred it to be a better Crawford type and the size is promised to be huge (my tree is too young for size to mean much). The season is similar. I don’t think it is patented although I am not sure about that. I had thought it was a seedling of Early Crawford but I read up and its a likely seedling of Baby Crawford.
Like I’ve said several times there are peach and nectarine flavors other than acidic. You won’t find them in the low acid fruits at low brix. But at high brix the Honey series can have the richest flavor of anything I grow. It’s enhanced by water deficit and that’s the only reliable way I’ve gotten high brix.
If someone really wants to know where they’re at get a brix reading. Then we can compare notes.
I don’t understand the small fruit size with nectarines. I haven’t had issues sizing the fruit on Citation in the greenhouse. And I leave a pretty heavy crop IMO. K1 has much smaller fruit than Citation. I don’t have a feel for fruit size on Lovell yet but I think it will be smaller than Citation.
The small fruit size is probably related to their relative lack of vegetative vigor which I imagine to be related to their higher brix levels than peaches. My nectarines have a range of vigor but none of them compare to my peach trees in that dept.
In that case Honey series still aren’t for me, as I doubt I could ever get the brix numbers you are talking about unless I tried to grow them inside. That’s why I also think there is no pressing reason for me to invest in a brix meter in the context of these high brix numbers discussions. For my part, it’s not that I don’t have the courage to report brix numbers, as you’ve mentioned in posts before. I already concede outside grown fruit here won’t approach anything you grow in your greenhouse. It’s that the gap in brix numbers here vs. what you get in your greenhouse is so large there is little point in trying to do comparisons with you, as illustrated by my disappointment with Honeyblaze.
I suspect for folks growing fruit in CA, comparing brix numbers with you might be more relevant to those types of discussions.