Bob, it is a few days ahead of PF1 and probably a superior peach. PF1 can be good if we get lots of dry, clear weather in the 2 or 3 weeks preceding ripeness, which is not what we got this year.
The thing is, earliness compensates for a lot. Blueberries are great but having peaches in the early mix is better. I’m eating a bowl of oatmeal with a Rich May peach and blueberries in between sentences right now. When the weather turns hot, peaches are more refreshing than blueberries when I come home from work and harvesting is so much quicker.
In 2 weeks I will likely be inundated with plums, apricots, peaches and nectarines but right now Rich May and blueberries are all I have (besides black currants, mulberries and a few raspberries). Early Star and Harrow Diamond are almost ready along with the Alfred apricot (the only proven apricot winner here, although at nearby sites I manage a wide variety of successes). This will be my first year to try Early Star.
I’ve been building this orchard for over 25 years, so it is in full production. Now, if we can just dial back the rain a bit.
I’ll second that. Its ridiculous here, the wettest midsummer I can remember. I don’t spray apricots after curculio is gone but I lost a third to rot this year. Now I am getting plums rotting, even though I did hit them with several sprays. They are due for MFF this weekend.
I had my first peach a few days ago, a Gold Dust starting to rot so I grabbed it. Looking forward to peaches if I can just hold the rot at bay.
I haven’t sprayed for 6 weeks but there was no rot on Rich May and so far none on other peaches just getting there. I’ve never had a problem with BR on earliest varieties at my site, even before I used Indar- not until Red Haven time.
I will apply first spray for those customers wanting pristine fruit tomorrow since the one less than 2 weeks after petal fall (about 6 weeks ago). Sites where I’m only holding back rot on stone fruit will be sprayed next week. If it wasn’t so wet I’d hold back another week.
Sean, I got my Rich May from Vaughn Nursery in Tennessee. They sell it under the name Flavorich but according to Clemson University, it is the same peach.
I tried to post this as an update but editing my original post didn’t bring it back from the dead. If you are interested in the topic please reread the top comment.
No I haven’t. I get most of my peach trees from Adams County Nursery. I let them do much of the preliminary trialing for me. Scott has gotten me into testing some west coast, older varieties now, however. I let Scott do the preliminaries their, but his methods and tastes are different as well as his location.
Just a word on Glenglo. This is the first year we’ve harvested off Glenglo. I’m sure you all know the weather has been horrible for stone fruits here in the Midwest. According to the Kansas City Star, the KCI airport reported a total of 4 days in which it didn’t rain in the month of May. June was wet cloudy and cool. So far July has followed the same pattern (we finally have some sunny hot dry weather the last few days).
Needless to say the flavor of the peaches has not been good. We’ve harvested several varieties and Glenglo has by far been the best. There is one caveat though. After thinning Glenglo trees had a pretty light crop (less than a bushel per tree). Still the fruit was huge, and tasted better and more consistent than any other yellow variety up to this point this year. In spite of the huge fruit size, there were hardly any split pits. We’ve had so much rain this year many trees have lost a lot of foliage from bac. spot and much of the fruit is spotty. Not so with Glenglo. The fruit is perfect, the foliage is perfect.
Again part of the size and flavor might have resulted from a fairly thin crop and it’s only one year’s evaluation, but as I said, it’s been the best variety so far. I had planned order more from Adams for next spring before I read this thread, but perhaps they are not available for next year.
I looked at the patent, and it comes off patent protection in Feb. 2017, so I may just wait till then. That way it would give me another year to evaluate. As it stands right now, Glenglo blows the doors off of Garnet Beauty and Early Redhaven (all of which ripen about the same time.)
I am growing GaLa but the GaLa’s haven’t fruited yet. They are supposed to be a smaller peach. My GaLa’s are younger and may fruit next year.
Sometimes I can’t make heads or tails of these reported ripening schedules. Glenglo ripens -13 to -9 (depending on whose ripening schedule you look at). GaLa ripens about -8 to -5, depending on the ripening schedule.
For me, this year Glenglo ripened with Garnet Beauty (which is closer to -15 for me). As I mentioned Glenglo did have a lighter crop than most of the other trees, which tends to advance ripening.
As far as stone freeness, I honestly can’t remember. We’ve harvested about 15 varieties already and I can’t remember how freestone Glenglo is. I’ve still got some Glenglos on the trees, so I’ll try to remember to check them tomorrow about that.
Can you please share all of the varieties of apricots that you described as a “wide variety of successes” in the orchards you manage? I think we have similar conditions. Thanks!
There has been a lot of discussion about Rich May; has it been established with any certainty that it is the same as Flavorich? Is there anyone that could furnish me with scions next winter?
Rich May is also sold as Flavorich. But the nomenclature is incorrect. It was patented (expired now) as Rich May. Still, if you see Flavorich in a nursery catalog, it’s Rich May. Vaughn nursery sells an “Early Flavorich” as well as Flavorich. I have no idea what Early Flavorich is. Possibly a sport of Flavorich/Rich May? I no longer have Rich May. It didn’t perform well for me in my location.
Vaughn nursery is a great nursery btw. I bought 20 trees from them this spring for something like 5 bucks a tree. The trees were small, but I like small peach trees. On top of that, they could only come up with 19 trees, and they sent me a check back for the overpaid balance. First time a nursery has done that. When that’s happened before, a different nursery just kept my money and applied it to my account.