Thank you so much Girly!
2 Likes
Any updates on snack time or honey halo? I ordered these trees based on this thread and will be planting them out soon in western NC.
1 Like
Snack time is a keeper for me. Honey Halo splits quite a bit. Both fruits are outstanding brix and flavor. BUT the skin is quite thick on Honey Halo and less but still thick on snack time. Fruit size is tiny but flavor is big.
I dont know how it will do in NC - but keep us posted!
@ahmed had good success with Honey Halo in CT.
3 Likes
I see some scarlett halo trees in Costco, how do they taste?
Scarlet halo is actually quite incredible. It’s not just an interesting curiosity that it is saucer shaped, but is top notch in flavor.
Which Costco by the way?
I’m sorry there’s no 2022 follow up from Mamuang. I really am curious about how these nects will do here in the east. Thing is, if they are so good I would expect Burchnell to make some kind of deal with Adams County Nursery as Dave Wilson apparently has.
There lies the quickest solution to cost of shipping. Have a supplier here as the destination for a single loaded truck and let the smaller orders be shipped form there.
Honey Blaze and especially Carene of the subacid high sugar varieties have done well for me- on my own site and others I manage, but somehow Carene has disappeared from availability. It may be too small for commercial production but for the home grower it is an extremely useful variety for its high sugar at such an early date of harvest. Once low acid fruit gets above about 19 brix it becomes something special. Low acid peaches tend not to get enough sugar here in the northeast to exceed bland to my palate. An exception is Saturn, which gets just sweet enough.
A plus about Carene for the home grower is that it is early enough to defeat wasp predation, which is a huge problem with the Honey series (and the Saturn peach, for that matter). They get attacked well before they are ripe and most of the crop tends to be destroyed before harvest with later ripening varieties. I’ve only managed to harvest about a dozen Honey Royales in the 4 years my tree has been bearing fruit. It now has other varieties grafted on it.
2 Likes
Good to know. I am first time grower and I am looking for white saturn peach but scarlett halo is yellow so I am hesistate to get it.
I saw it in multiple stores in San Francisco bay area.
1 Like
Sorry for the late reply. I am not very active on the forum. I try to reply when I can. Scarlett Halo is a delicous donut white and red peach with a nice acid and sugar balance that I tasted at Andys orchard and it was very good.
I ordered Scarlet Halo but I received a yellow donut peach from Burchell. Nice size fruit, seems alternate bearing or high chill. Around 17-20 brix and tastes like Fanta! Nice flavor and different from my other yellow peaches. So keeping it. Again I have not evaluated for enough years to make a strong recommendation.
You are welcome to try some fruit from my trees in the summer if you are local.
Good luck with your trees!
3 Likes
I am sorry that i don’t check the site more frequently. The relationship that Adams County has with Dave Wilson is one that I am very familiar with, as i was with Dave Wilson for 20 years. It is difficult to know what to recommend to Adams County as we at Burchell Nursery don’t know what varieties of our selections are best suited to the east coast. This is how it was with Dave Wilson as well. In that case most of the varieties that were DWN’s and grown by AC were time tested to some degree by commercial or you pick growers on the east coast. To a degree early catalog sales influenced that market but remember many or all of those varieties have been offered by AC since before internet promotion and sale existed.
With all the new and exciting varieties, I have reviewed over the last 3 years at Burchell Nursery I have selected at least 20 jewels. A selection of Peach, Nectarine and Plums, with particular attention to the donut style peach and nectarine varieties. To date my research has pointed to The Freckle Face Nectarine and Snack Time Donut Nectarine as showing promise in climates outside of say zone 8, which is typically the limit of most nectarine varieties. I will continue to monitor vital sites like this, but it all takes a lot of time. With my 20 years at DWN, I evaluated fruit regularly, both from the Zaigers and the other hybridizers throughout the country. In that time, I can account for less than 20 varieties that I thought were winners that in fact became standards across all fruit types. This is and ongoing experiment that has been going on for centuries. With the best information coming from word of mouth. Please keep sharing that information as it is so important.
7 Likes
Hi Girly, i am sorry to hear that you received the wrong tree from our Tomorrows Harvest site. Please contact me and I will see that we get you a Scarlet Halo. It truly is one of the jewels that I have discovered here at Burchell Nursery. Not sure what the yellow would be though, could you send me a picture this season?
5 Likes
Thank you for the update…!! @EDLO Would you be free to list your 20 jewels or whatever you’ve liked best at Burchell? If so, many would be interested.
And while I’m asking, do you have another list of the best of the best from everywhere?
6 Likes
I’ll Give it shot, then i have to get back to work
Apricots
Golden Sweet- great for marginal apricot growing areas
White Knockout- one of the finest flavored apricots that i have ever experienced
Orange Knockout- Great flavor in a higher acid Apricot
Nectarines
Candy Sprinkles- Just wow!
Freckle Face- won the Dave Wilson Nursery taste test 2 years in a row. At the time i would not let those results to be published…Sorry i am in marketing
Honey Halo- Just another donut style with a snap to the skin and great taste
Snack Time- Catching on quickly as a first rate donut style nectarine
October Sugar-A great white fleshed, late season selection that I am sure is only for zone 9
October Snow- Another super flavored late white that is zone 9
White Diamond- Large size, excellent flavor, long hang time
Peaches
Autumn Marble- can’t say enough good things about this variety. Wonderful flavor, long hang time
Autumn Marvel- same as above but not as late ripen more mid-season. might need a rename
Marbled Ginger- A spicy delight
Pumpkin Spice- another one i have name problems with as it is a mid season ripening selection. But an in-house favorite.
Sugar Tigar donut- another in house favorite. Just the perfect size with a great acid sugar balance.
Autumn Flame- this is a fresh fruit, you pick favorite that i have found to be exceptionally flavored when fully ripe
Pink Diamond- is a giant-sized white that is fully flavored for the crunchy fruit lover
Pink and Scarlet Halo donut- both are wonderful white flesh selections with pink or red veins radiating into the flesh
Plums- just straight plums not crosses
Caramel Kiss- Dark skinned with an odd caramel colored flesh., but what unique flavor this early season fruit has
Lavendar Showers- very special taste
Showtime- in house favorite, just the right amount of sugar along with a complex flavor so common with the Burchel Plum selections
Starry Nights - a late mid season delight and one that i think will have a wide range of adaptations
Oops i just realized that it was a few more than 20 that I have on my Burchell list of favorites.
I will answer any questions that one may have
15 Likes
The list of Burchell favorites is above,. I will see about compiling my list of overall favorites. it is a bit more challenging as i quite often divide my favorites-based on zones. For instance one of my favorite varieties of fruit is the Reed Avocado and ya just can’t grow that everywhere
2 Likes
Thank you very much. I printed that out for further research.
I just purchased five of those and will try to add more.
2 Likes
Hi Ed! Cool to meet someone from Burchell Nursery on here! I just met the Burchell family last month, and my cousin is marrying into the family this Saturday. Totally bummed we can’t make it (hubby is getting crushed with work), but super-excited for the young couple!
2 Likes
You mean Dave Wilson’s nect varieties. There are plenty of nectarine varieties that survive Z6 easily and usually provide crops. Fantasia and Redgold are two CA varieties. Also the low acid high sugar In fact, all the offerings from Adams have worked reasonably well for me, especially those developed by Rutgers and USDA breeding program in Kearneyville. Carene, Jade and Artic Glo also.
2 Likes
I am aware of all those, but as a rule you really should not make a recommendation of a Nectarine variety in any zone higher than zone 8 without a track record of successful performance to support it. In fact I would use caution in planting Arctic Glo due to its extreme susceptibility to Powery mildew.
1 Like
Exactly, and you shouldn’t recommend any variety without testing it for about 10 years, but we do it anyway because we get very excited about new and delicious discoveries.
I’ve been growing nects here for about 30 years and have not found them any more vulnerable to winter kill than peaches although the ovaries are less tolerant to cold than many of the peaches I grow, although not all.
Here is a list of the nects ACN sells, ask them the range in which they thrive. I mange about 10 nectarine varieties at many orchards, but they would have a much better handle on the question than me.
25 years ago I went to a NAFEX conference at UMass and I remember that there were ripe Fantasia nectarines on mature trees in their experimental orchard. I don’t know if there was a range of other varieties there.
2 Likes
Yes Alan, it is every bit of 10 years and the most solid information come from growers like yourself. I have worked with Adams County through the years in my capacity with Dave Wilson Nursery. I also remember all the criticism about the California varieties and many of the early varieties that Adams County was working with are no longer offered as i believe you related. I don’t mean to imply that the trees aren’t hardy, in fact i mean to say that they can be more of a challenge to set fruit without inputs. Lots more things are attracted to nectarines it seems besides just people. There are so many great nectarine varieties that i have samples through the years. But before the Fantasia, set the standard there were varieties like Independance and Goldmine that were the most common that i remember in the 70’s. Fantasia and Flavortop came in sometime in the late 60’s early 70’s and we were just getting excited about them in the early 80’s and I believe they both came out of California.
4 Likes
My favorite low-acid nectarine is Carene because it shows up before yellow jackets so not only can you let it get ripe but it also ripens so early that there are slim pickens of other fruit. I’ve harvested at as high as about 26brix which is pretty amazing for such an early ripening fruit on this side of the continent with all the wet grey days in spring. Yet Adams stopped carrying it and it seems to have disappeared from the trade, perhaps because the fruit is pretty small.
I planted a Hardired something like 30 years ago and it died last year. It was very crack-prone but a highly flavored nect.
1 Like