Good morning All
I have a Belle of Georgia peach tree going on its sixth season, last yr was its first big crop, and it was big. I canned 25 qts of peaches from that tree, but this yr there was hardly any flowers on the tree. Now I didn’t thin the fruit last yr, and I’m thinking the tree had such a big crop last yr that it just needs to recharge its batteries this yr. The tree is in excellent shape, no diseases that I can see, and I fertilized early this spring with 12-12-12. Does my assumption that because it had such a large crop last yr, so not much this yr sound right?
Peaches do not go biennial like apples. They can produce full crop one year and still produce a decent crop the following year.
How was this past winter like? Also, was there any time in March and April that temperature went below 25 F?
My guess is Belle of Georgia flower buds got killed during the winter or early spring. How are other peach trees you have? Do the rest produce flowers?
Contender is more cold tolerant than Belle of Georgia.
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I think you may be right although my other peach trees are younger, none of them had any flowers so maybe the frost we had last month killed any flowers that would have came. Thanks much for the info, I guess this goes with the territory, I haven’t
had much luck with contender, but I was was reading about frost peach, at least I think that’s it’s name.
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i have a contender that i put in last year and just added a reliance today. the contender had some tip dieback but came through in good shape. it was a relatively mild winter but had 1 day it got -30f.
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Did the Contender bloom after -30?
its just starting to leaf out here and its only a year in ground.
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I have had both years of excellent yield and years of no fruit from my Belle of Georgia peach. The deciding factor seems to be whether or not late freezes have taken a toll on the buds and flowers, not the previous years yield. This was not a good year for stone fruit or pear fruit set. My only good stone fruit yield this year will be from a reliance peach tree, a particularly cold hardy variety.
Even my contender graft of several years set no fruit.
Seems like it is going to be a bad year for peaches in many areas.
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Well if one loves growing peaches, I guess this all goes with the territory. But Belle of Georgia peaches are among the best, I love the white flesh, and they’re incredibly sweet and juicy. After that huge crop I had last yr and seeing the difference between store bought peaches, and the ones my tree produced, it makes every thing worth it, the good, bad and indifferent.
Paul
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I’m with you there. It was that first taste of Belle of Georgia that convinced me to plant more white fleshed peach trees. I love the flavor too!
The one time I met Lee Calhoun in person, Belle of Georgia peaches was the first topic we talked about. ,
. What a memorable discussion with an amazing man!
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Did you prune it like crazy? From visiting @eboone, I saw he whacks probably 30-40% of the branches each year to get good new branch growth for more fruit the next year.
Not sure who you are asking but I prune about a fourth off. My trees are older and don’t seen to have as much vigorous growth as they once had.
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I was commenting for OP. I didn’t catch a mention of pruning (may have missed it) so I figured I’d put some input. It sounds like you are close to what I said should work 
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Yeah I prune in the early spring, early March, and I’d say I prob prune 15%. What I try to prune out is the center of the tree so it can get air circulation and sunlight. I also try to cut the top so as to keep it at a manageable height, also the branches going in a downward direction.
Paul
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I have a moderately decent amount of fruit set on my peaches, but I have the same problem others have mentioned where my peach trees seem to have far less leaves than normal. Some trees only have leaves toward the very end of the branches, hardly anything in the interior. I’m concerned there aren’t enough leaves to properly ripen the fruit load.
My only peaches and nectarines are the ones from potted trees.
Sad as we feel, I took off any peaches that do not have enough leaves to support good fruit quality. Technically, almost all fruit 
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My peach trees have the same problem. I am wondering what is the proper way to address this issue. Do people just leave it as-is, or cut it off to the scaffold and grow new branch from the scaffold/or at the base ?
I really don’t know what’s best, but I’m probably going to thin the fruit quite a bit on those trees and then just let it go. I might pick one to fertilize heavily and see if that spurs any new leaf growth. Some of my peach trees are better than others. Blushingstar seems like the worst, while Madison seems almost (but not quite) normal. I don’t think my plum trees had this problem at all. If I can fight the curcculio properly, I might have the most plums I’ve ever had.
My Belle of Georgia was loaded with flower buds and the mid-March freeze after a mild February done them in. I am using this year to prune it back hard. Otherwise the fruit wood is going to be growing on what was supposed to be this year’s fruiting wood, pushing all of the fruit to the furthest edges of the tree and risks being pruned off in many places (given that I prune it to 10-12ft).
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Well for a time something didn’t look quite right on my 3 largest peach trees two Bell of Georgia, and a reliance. The leaves looked smaller and yes seemed to be at the ends of the branches, and the leaves seemed to be a little lighter in color.But now everything is filling in nicely, and the leaves are the color they should be. For the exception that they’re not going to have as many peaches, everything is just about back to normal. I didn’t do anything differently this yr, prune, fertilize, and before the woke up I sprayed them with copper fungicide and dormant oil. I don’t know maybe it’s the mild winter we had!
Paul