Anyone grow nectarines or pluots in Kentucky?

General Fruit Growing
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Just curious if anyone has been successful. I know there are problems with certain fruit trees in Kentucky. Late frosts and such.

But even if I don’t get fruit every year, it might be worth it to me if the trees can thrive well.

Anyone had any luck?

Thanks.

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Hey WD, I am in the northeast part of KY, just in the foothills. I am new to planting and growing fruit, and have planted 4 peach (2 two years ago and 2 last year), and 3 pluot trees back in March. Whereabouts in KY are you?

Peaches (and I imagine nects) around our area are very hit and miss, like you said, due to late freezes. My trees have bloomed the last couple years in March, and subsequently got hit by hard freezes in April, so no fruit here. Even in a large orchard we frequent in the Lexington area has had a hard time getting any peaches through frosts. Last year they lost 95% of their crop to freezes, but this year was a little better, but still not a full crop (maybe 50%?).

Wild plums do grow here, so that is my maybe why I think pluots might work in our location. I think we might have a better shot at pluots than peaches, but my thinking may be faulty. Considering the varieties I’m growing (Dapple Dandy, Flavor King and Geo Pride) only require about 600 chill hours at the most, I may be in for a disappointment.

I know we may go years before get any fruit, but I’m willing to take that risk. We are growing other fruit, and hopefully in the coming years they will produce for us.

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Hi subdood,

Thanks for the response.

I am less than an hour south of Lexington.

I put in 2 peach trees and 2 plums this year. I got them from a local place that chooses varieties that are supposed to be hardy for the area. We shall see how they do.

Your chill hours comment has me thinking. I’ve just searched and I see there are a few pluots with high chill hours, like 800 or so. Maybe that’s the way I need to go. Flavor Supreme is 700-800. Flavorich is 800. That would more closely match the plums I got (AU Rosa and AU Amber), which are around 800 chill hours too I believe. And they might even pollinate each other.

I guess I’ll have to do some digging for a low chill nectarine and perhaps apricot too.

Thanks again!

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Grew Flavor Queen and Flavor Supreme, as well as Bill’s Nectarpeachcot, for 10-15 years. Never got a fruit from any of them.
IMO the apricot in them fosters far too early break of dormancy. A fruit tree blooming in Feb here in KY hasnt a prayer of producing.

Nectarine… ain’t that just a fuzzless peach ?
Might get a crop one year out of five here, if brown rot doesnt take them.

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Hi Lucky_P,

Whereabouts in KY are you? Did the Flavor Supreme try to bloom later, or was it blooming in Feb as well?

As far as nectarines, yes, it’s basically a fuzzless peach. For some reason I get cravings for both. Not sure why.

Thanks.

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Christian Co.
I pulled them out years ago, after a decade or more of failed production… don’t recall exact bloom times

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@BlueBerry is not that far from your location, perhaps he could comment?

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Bob, thanks, but I’ve not tried to grow either pluots or nectarines. Peaches are pretty “iffy”…with one or two crops in five seasons on average. Apricots usually get frozen even more than peaches.

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Yeah, I’m not too optimistic with my trees, but think I ought to get some peaches once every few years. I have Contender (~1050 chill hours), Blushingstar (800 CH), Rehaven (950 CH) and Coralstar (950 CH), so they may have a better shot than some other varieties, but the last couple years they have got bit by hard freezes. There’s a big peach orchard about 50 miles NE of us across the Ohio River, and they had a big crop last year, so it’s possible.

In the winter of '16 I was considering getting some apricots, but thought I’d prob never get any fruit here. The only reason I’m trying pluots is that wild plums do well here, but that may be a reach.

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Pluots will bloom well before the peaches you mentioned. They are as hopeless as apricots against late frost. Maybe worse. In my greenhouse pluots in general bloom earlier than apricots.

Pluots are very distant relatives of those wild plums.

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Stick to the wild plums.
I gave up on any cultivated plums years ago… only the native Chickasaws (including the Guthrie selection) have proved to be worthy of any space here.
Euro and Japanese hybrids were all collosal failures.