When you say they should have been higher, are you saying they usually are? I didn’t think you had enough experience with this variety or any, for that matter, to have established expectations like this. For me, a tree with only a few fruit is not an accurate barometer for how it will perform when it is mature and loaded with fruit. Often my first light crop has the best fruit the tree will ever have, unfortunately. But I don’t think you can improve peaches by getting brix above about 15-16. That’s all that is required for a perfect peach for most palates. Of course, for processing I can see the advantage of higher brix- but only a minor one. Also, Indian Free is very acidic and a very atypical peach- the most unusual I’ve ever tasted. At 20 brix, it must taste tropical.
In wetter years I did get just as high brix, so it makes me think the tree is becoming mature and
stealing water from my strawberry bed about 5 feet behind it. The tree is 5th leaf now . The highest branch is about 6’6". It is on citation.
Oh, it’s on citation- that explains a lot. I wonder if I shouldn’t experiment with more dwarfing rootstocks. My IF of similar age is triple your size and peaches are much larger than yours which is not a good thing if it’s at the expense of brix.
Here citation seems to get canker, but the tree is still alive.
The nectaplum grows better on citation here. Seems the plum genes dwarf less.
The squirrels stole only a few fruit hesitant to come into the yard, as my dog has been close to catching them a few times. I didn’t even bother netting it this year.
Citation is supposed to produce bigger fruit. I didn’t thin well, I plan to hit it very hard next year.
It is October 1, 2017. Zone 5b in NY.
INDIAN FREE PEACH
- Tree second year in ground as bare root.
- Fruit is soft to the touch but melting firm on the inside.
- Very juicy. Juice was running on the knife blade as I sliced.
- BRIX 15-16
- FLAVOR - Strong peachy flavor, sweet with good acid.
I was away for 2 weeks and wee had a mini heat wave with temps in the 80’s here last week. Last weekend was probably the best time to harvest if I wanted any storage. But, this is a young tree and only had 9 fruit so, inadvertently, I got the perfectly tree ripened version of this peach. 
See below.
Mike
Those look awesome, enjoy!!
My first crop was great also. Like most peaches and nects, it failed to crop last year and this year IF suffered more from the conditions than any variety I grow.
I love the fruit when it actually arrives, but the jury is still out on whether this is a practical one to grow here. If it ends up being half as productive as other varieties, I will be satisfied, but this year it was not nearly good enough. My rather large tree only allowed a couple of fruit to ripen properly. OFM, splilt pits and probably damaged ovaries from the Feb deep freeze destroyed almost the entire crop when other varieties had bumper years.
My best WOW red fleshed peach, so far, is easily Silver Gem, which is actually a nectarine. It grows only 20 feet from the Indian Free.
I had very good luck with all my peaches/nects this year.
I way under-thinned this year. Last year was a complete dud on stone fruit.
I must have had a brain fart that told me to “average” last year’s crop with this year’s crop. Didn’t work as planned 
Subconsciously, I failed to thin as mercilessly as it needed to be and left way too many on the trees.
The late Indian Frees are a treat.
Well … every day you learn something new is a GOOD day.
Mike