In Southern California, recording bloom times is important! First, it matters because you might like to make your yard pretty and stack your bloom from December to May. Second, they matter because our climate deviates from the Central Valley where most of the bloom estimates originate. Third, they matter when productivity depends on pollination, and you are planning your orchard.
Right now I am transitioning from wide testing toward culling the herd and keeping my favorites. Hopefully these bloom time observations will help someone plan their orchard. It is really hard to choose cultivars when you don’t get a chance to a) test the flavor b) test productivity in your climate. I have had some major duds over the years and when I talk to others, they have the same experiences. On the other hand, I have also seen some positive surprises that make all the experimentation worthwhile. These observations might help get you to a great outcome with fewer mistakes.
Note: In my yard the 2023-2024 winter was a great test case. We had hardly any of those random 85 degree days right at the worst time, in December or January. So that was good for chill. But that being said it was hardly ever in the 30s in my yard. It was the least cold winter I remember. We hardly ever used the heater. Good fruiting this winter can be a sign that a cultivar will not need much chill.
Note that my yard is near a valley and a river in inland San Diego, so I probably get more and better chill than the average So Cal location.
Eva’s Pride peach was actually my first to bloom this year, in late January. This is a highly aromatic peach that fruits early, and gets done early enough to (mostly) miss oriental fruit moth. It is a proven winner in Southern California.
Desert Delight nectarine is excellent, productive, and early for me. It was the second cultivar to flower in my yard this year, progressing from a few scattered flowers in late January to peak bloom in mid-February. Now that I get consistent cherries, I do not need early peaches and nectarines as much but these two are worth growing.
Here is how I keep track of bloom times by year. I got the idea from someone on this forum but I do not remember who. Basically I use excel to make my own version of a harvest calendar, and I use the color fill to make it easy to spot. The light color is scattered bloom and the darker color is full bloom. I have 4 columns per month, roughly corresponding to 1 week each.
This doesn’t really matter for peaches as much but it matters a lot for cherries and pluots, most of which rely on a pollinizer cultivar blooming at the same time.
Most years I also record harvest times in a different color, but last year I did not have enough free time. This is 2023 peach and nectarine bloom times. If you grow pluots in southern California, you may want to create something like this.
Yes, it sure is. It was originally a test graft, which was loaded with fruit and tasted better than the August Pride host tree. Now I have it on its own tree. Walter Andersen nursery carries it. Great peach.
This chart suggests that Arctic Glo and June Pride fruited for you im previous years, is that right? Not sure how long you had them, but do they fruit every year?
Arctic Glo is on a weaker tree and fruits lightly every year. I think it would do better on a healthier tree but can not be sure.
June Pride is productive here, almost every year so far.
For peaches, unlike cherries and apricots, some of the high chill cultivars in a low chill environment will be productive, but of numerous small fruit that are inferior quality. That being said, June Pride did not show that problem. It was large and good despite the graft being in a shaded adverse location.
Favorite peach… Not sure but if I were doing it over again, Eva’s Pride and Saturn would make the list. Snow Queen is my favorite overall (nectarine). I am giving up on exploring late season peaches due to oriental fruit moth but if I can get permaculture to sustainably keep them in check I would look into that again.
My choices in Italy are much fewer but I have 2 Cal Red and a supposedly created in Italy cross between O’Henry and Stark Red Gold Nect which is a peach called Romestar. I had Snow Queen but it died
Candy Heart is starting to put out flowers as it almost always does for me the last week of February (inland So Cal).
Laroda has been my best pollinizer but it was our gophers best meal and is no more. 2 test grafts are dormant, potentially illustrating the limitations of testing one graft vs an entire tree. It was my best pollinizer.
Sugar Twist pluerry is starting to have scattered bud break.
Test grafts of Howard Miracle, Beauty, Burgundy, and Splash are all dormant.
Test graft of Dapple Supreme would have been the best candidate but it died.
Peacot surprised me by being one of my earliest to bloom. This fruit is sold by Andy Mariani and when I tasted it at his farm shop, it was one of the best peaches I had ever had so I had to try it in my yard. It is a peach and the “cot” reflects not its genetics (no apricot heritage) but rather its flavor tones.
Such pretty flowers. I’m worried about my trees; since I’m keeping them short (second year, backyard orchard), I pruned them back to an outward facing bud, and they still have not woken up. Scared that I’ve damaged them.
I notice that varieties that you have listed I know to do well here in NY are your latest blooming. Makes me curious to try ones I’ve never heard of that you list as late blooming.
Grain of salt with my dates, since I do have some cultivars here that bloom late for me due to inadequate chill hours. I know this happens because they are mid-season in higher chill areas. I think this was true for my late-blooming pluots/plums and it is true for my Moorpark apricot.
The general lesson of what I am doing is that it only takes 1 tree to do local adaptation studies. 1 tree that works for your region and then a bunch of grafts for testing.
This is how Luther Burbank screened so many of his own creations, he grafted hundreds of cultivars to a single tree and then selected from those. Thanks for following along!
Re: Peacot, it was grafted last year so I may get fruit next year, if all goes well.
