Here in NY state O’Henry is not a recommended or often grown variety, but it used to be grown in the south quite a bit even though it is mostly considered a CA peach. I’m always looking for high quality late peaches in Encore’s season so decided to experiment with it.
Bacterial spot hasn’t plagued its leaves in the three years its grown here and it was one of the few peach varieties in my orchard that even had a scattering of peaches after a certain freeze event this winter that killed most northeast peach blossoms this season.
I never sprayed the tree with a summer fungicide or anything else after spring, but the almost fully ripe peach I ate today had some “soft” scab (cosmetic only) and would have otherwise been perfect if a wasp hadn’t punctured it. It was crawling with ants given access by the hole.
The peach needed 2 or 3 more days on the tree but was still crunchy delicious with lots of acid to give it kick. My kind of peach. It was also huge, which is fine but not important to me.
Hopefully next year will give me a more definitive idea about O’Henry’s potential here, but I’m pretty confident it will be a keeper and have already grafted it on some peaches in my nursery. Grafts have grown vigorously without much bac spot.
I never had problems with spot on the leaves, its the fruit that can get spot/scab. Its mainly cosmetic though. About every 4th year it cracks, and its somewhat prone to rot. Its not the ideal east coast peach but it usually comes through pretty well. And, the taste is awesome.
My tree is in decline, its 15 years old and starting to show the wear (not helped by a massive borer infection for several of those years). This year the fruits did not size up well. So, looks like I will put a new tree in for next year.
I’ve had trouble w/ bac. spot on this variety at the farm, but the one tree in my backyard generally produces good looking fruit. I suppose it depends on how much bac. spot pressure the site has. The farm has lots of bac. spot pressure (probably more than most people would experience).
I agree with Alan, and Scott’s past reviews, it’s a good tasting peach. I prefer its taste to Encore.
We are completely done with the peach season here, but started the season unusually early this year.
Maybe you should give Victoria a try. It comes in a couple weeks after Encore is done and had good flavor here last year even on fruit poorly exposed to sun in my nursery. .
That is strange. In other years your later peaches have ripened with or even earlier than mine while your earlier ones are much earlier. I thought I was figuring something out but you’ve thrown another wrench in the gears of my horticultural thinking. My theory was our longer daylight eventually caught our trees up with your earlier springs and warmer weather.
I think you’re right. My only explanation for the anomaly this year was that we started w/ our first bloom three weeks earlier than normal. First peach bloom was on March 10, when in normal years it starts about the first of April.
Alan,
I just shared the first O’Henry peach with my husband. We both loved it. It had nice taste and texture with brix @15. (highest brix of my peaches this wet year).
I have only 3 of O’ Henry this year from this graft. Quite late as it was picked yesterday. Of 6-7 peach varieties I have this year, O’Henry tasted the best. Definitely, a keeper.
I’m afraid even O’Henry didn’t nearly reach 15 this year. My best late peach was actually Lady Nancy when all was said and done, and I usually don’t like it that much. My first few O’Henry’s were quite good but the main crop was nothing to crow about. All and all a very humbling season.
I still have Heath Cling and Indian Free almost ripe, but I’m not optimistic. I’m about out of fresh nectarines so they will have to do.
The soil just never dried out for a day. Even though the unusual wetness has been gone for quite a while the soil is still quite moist.
My apples seem pretty good so far, anyway. Magnificent crop of them just like of almost everything else. I would gladly have given up 75% of my crop to push up the brix a couple of points.
Things dried out a bit more in Sept for me, my Indian Free were 20 brix and awesome. But the rot finally got going right at the end and my Heath Cling is mostly rotting. Considering I didn’t spray anything since June I did really well, but next year will do more Indar later.
I sprayed my peach with Indar twice, through the bags. The second time may be in late June or early July.
Although I’ve seen liitle rot at picking time, the peaches do not last more than a few days when rot starts to creep in. I think had I sprayed directly on the fruit, it would have better protection.
I am torn between baggingvs no bagging
Bagging - less Surround on fruit skin, dropped fruit staying in bag, no damage. no bagging - more efficacy of fungicide, possible more bug damage, more Surround on fruit skin, fruit damage from drops.
Just had a very good Indian Free peach from my tree- didn’t want to embarrass myself by doing a brix reading when Scott is getting 20. I’m just glad to now being able to look forward to possibly another 3 weeks of peaches that are actually good.
One reason for more late rot here is all the split pits from excessive rain. Normally my lates are fine without additional sprays after early Aug. I doubt anything is going to prevent rot from the pit.
My Indian Free is ready too, it was dry here here all summer, brix though is only 20-22.
It’s a week earlier than last year. No rot at all.
I was pleasantly surprised as three on the north side were kncked off the other day and the grix was only about 17, and IF at that is tart, still really good, Most though have higher brix, I grabbed a bad example, I’m going to use those on the north side or shaded for preserves this year, I never made preserves with peaches before, so thought I would try after Bob’s post about making preserves/jam.
They are really red this year.
Why do you say brix is only 20-22. That is exceptionally high for a peach and the fact that Scott is getting 20 already has me surprised. It is a very unique peach, however. Seems to be like a condensed fruit, even the flesh is dense.
Yes, it’s above average, but we had no rain this year, it should have been higher, I suspect the tree roots are finding water in my raised beds. Nothing I can do the veggies need water and the blueberries too.
Mine are very melting. I took some photos. I harvested some fingerlings today too.
No I didn’t pick them early, they were falling off the tree. 7 in 2 days (now that damages the peaches), I decided to harvest.Some damage may occur, Most will all be processed in a day or two. I like these mostly for cooking. I’ll save the bigger ones for fresh eating.
They were hand stacked, not thrown in. Stacked 2 high. I stack them higher in my harvesting bag. These tend to get mealy when over ripe, They are close, actually perfectly ripe, and so i will process right now.
