I wouldn’t sweat that decision too much. PF27A produces poorly in bad weather years, but we’ve still harvested a lot of peaches off these trees.
Likewise Victoria produces poorly in frosty springs, but I’ve not found anything this late which produces good quality peaches, so I don’t plan to remove this variety.
It’s definitely worth planting in marginal peach areas. I bought them from Adams County. But Boyer’s nursery also sells them. Boyer’s is expensive, but if you buy large quantities of trees, they are very reasonable. And they don’t sell out nearly as early as Adams.
Contender is the most bullet proof tree we’ve grown in terms of production. 24C is really good too, but if you are satisfied with Contender, I’d stick with that, unless you want a peach a few days later.
Don’t order 28-007 if you want production in marginal years. It was terribly finicky for me. I wouldn’t plant that one again, even if someone gave the trees to me.
It sounds like you and I face similar challenges in peach production. Namely frosty springs.
We didn’t have the best spring weather in 2022 but still have full production. I credit that to leaving a lot of red wood on the trees in the previous fall, and not pruning in late fall or winter.
It left us with a huge chore of trying to get all the trees pruned in the spring when there are a million other chores to do, but it did help with peach production.
Next year I lose my experienced pruner, so we will be pruning in late fall and possibly in winter, and leaving much less red wood on the trees, so necessarily don’t expect a full crop next year. But labor is driving the situation.
Btw, you may be interested in 2020 peach evaluations. That year we had two days were all the peaches were in full bloom, and it never got above 30F. Even in the daytime it hovered around 30F. All the blooms were covered in ice, which isn’t automatically a killer, but it’s not good.