Contender peach produced this season when the other 8 peach varieties did not do much

[Zone6]

First time I tried Contender. Very happy with it. It is late frost resistant and very good flavor. Crop was done about Aug 10. There were 4 other peaches from the tree not in this photo. I don’t spray the trees, so it is all natural. If a tree can’t produce without chemicals, it gets cut down.

This Contender peach is a newish tree, so not that much production. I planted small nursery tree last year. For the size of the tree, it produced a nice little crop of juicy peaches this season. Too bad I didn’t have more and older Contenders! The other 8 varieties of peaches I have didn’t do much this year due to late frost.

[whitecliffs]

If I had to cut down every fruit tree I had that wouldnt produce without chemicals, I wouldnt have any trees left

[ukie]

@Zone6

The other 8 varieties of peaches I have didn’t do much this year due to late frost.

Since we’re so close to each other, could you share which varieties didn’t produce?

My contender delivered this year as well.
Flat Wonderful was a bust.
Other peaches are too young to produce, maybe next year.

[MikeC]

Contender is a great peach in my area. I have 4 peach tress and two of them are Contenders because they produce a lot of wonderful peaches. I had a bumper crop of Contender peaches last year. This year I had two (2), yes 2 peaches on one tree and zero on the other one. The other two peach trees of mine had zero peaches as well. Must have been a freeze/frost/ cold blast that came through right as they were about bloom.
Of course I know it is a hit or miss venture with peaches in my area. Maybe next year I will have some peaches.

[Drew51]

@Zone6

a tree can’t produce without chemicals, it gets cut down.

It takes about five years for all pests to find your trees. Not unusual for first year fruit to be clean. Do that the 5th year and I would be impressed.

[mamuang]

@Drew51 and I are old timers. We probably sound pessimistic but experience has taught us to be this way. Brown rot and bugs found my peaches by the 2nd fruit producing season, around 5th of growing in ground.

Maybe, you would be as fortunate as @TNHunter. He produced trouble-free, chemicals-free peachesfor almost 10 years, I believe.

[jcf]

Yes, the ability of Contender to produce when others cant has given it quite a reputation. The nurseries are selling it as the super peach of peaches. It is a great peach and also here at my location it is the only variety that is advertised as and truly is free stone.
When we tested this variety at Mt Vernon, many years ago, we determined that there was nothing disease resistant about the peach and its ability to produce fruit was solely the result of its later bloom timing.

[Drew51]

Peaches are easier than nectarines. White high brix nectarines are tough. The bugs just love them. I can see growing some peaches without sprays. Or fewer sprays. Just warning you that it’s difficult. I use sprays and often still lose most of the fruit. This year though is pretty good. I just harvested a nice crop of pluots. A little small but great flavor this year. I harvested a few today. Geopride pluot.

[nil]

I call the “No Spray Method” the “No Fruit Method.” I would never limit my fruit production for a silly fad. If we stopped spraying crops, half of the world population would be dead in a year.
Fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides have allowed the human population to increase to current numbers.

[Zone6]

Don’t have a list handy. I label the trees, so would have to do a walk through and count them.

Maybe I had 12 - 13 peach varieties over the years. Here are some of the current peaches from memory.

Elberta, White Lady, Blushing Star, Hale Haven, Georgia Belle, August Lady, Red Haven, Contender an unknown mislabeled peach and another 1 or 2 peaches I can’t remember. 2 or 3 trees may have produced a couple or peaches, the others produced none.

Donut peach was a reliable producer and great grower, but it needs thinning, so pulled it out. Reliance peach had crappy tasting peaches. Cut it down years ago.

I was told back in '07 when I started. If you don’t spray, you will get no peaches. I almost didn’t start. Glad I did and didn’t listen to the internet advices! All my apple trees are sickly and produce little, so maybe there is something to it, depending on the trees. But for peaches, I can produce wildcrafting them. And Asian pears always produce a bumper crop more or less.

I had 1-2 white nectarines planted back in '08, but they didn’t work out. Maybe not enough sun, can’t remember. I didn’t know about sun back then. I just planted trees wherever. I heard nectarines are troublesome, so just went with peaches.

Same with apricots. Had 4 or 5 varieties of apricots planted in '08-'09. Trees grew OK, but seldom a crop in Z6. Maybe a few every 3 or 4 years, if that. Maybe an attempt at a decent crop from 1 tree every 7 or 8 years. Some varieties of apricots never produced an apricot in 12 or 13 years, so cut them all down and replaced apricots with all peaches.

Wish I had more Contenders!

[MiniOrchardDude]

Brown rot ruined all my plums on 5 of the 6 trees. Spring Satin ripened early enough to avoid the devestation. It also took out all 6 nectarine trees. Four were mature and full of fruit. It also ruined the Desire and Saturn peaches full of fruit.

Contender came through as a winner. I cant eat them all and they taste great. It’s a freestone variety so it makes it even better. Altough not my favorite peach or nectarine its my best producer.

[Zone6]

Mine is still small, but Contender seems to be a nice producer.

[Zone6]

Never a problem with plums other than black knot which covered them all. So had to pull them out. Green Gage, Shiro, Santa Rosa, and others.

[Joy]

I’m glad to read that Contender lived up to its reputation for withstanding late frost. It’s the reason I planted it, along with the other two peaches with names like Mars rovers: Intrepid and Reliance. None have produced yet - too young, and besides, almost nothing produced this year. Fingers crossed.

[PomGranny]

“No Spray Method” synonymous with “No Fruit Method”. I’ll second that !

Our peaches were dismal this year. Only ones from a graft of Flamin Fury are worth bragging about. They were great. Then I got sick with some kind of bug and didn’t spray enough . . . and all the other bugs out there went to town on my Indian Frees, which reached a decent size but are full of rot and frass.

I think Mamuang and

I never finished this post because the webpage kept freezing . . . and I finally gave up. Did anyone else have the same problem? Oh well. And now I can’t recall what I was going to say about Mamuang. Don’t worry, Tippy, it was good!

Thanks for the ‘welcome back’, @Sharbecr ! That was sweet of you.

[nil]

I live in Northern Ohio, so when my mother and several friends tasted this year’s fruits, I took it with a tiny grain of salt. This has been a good year in my microclimate. So far, 5 people have told me it is the best peach they have ever tasted. I planted that Contender bare-root last Spring.

[MikeC]

I have been impressed with my Flaming Fury peach as well. Last year was the first year it actually had some peaches on it. VERY tasty. In fact I thought they tasted just as good if not a little better than the Contenders. At least last year they did. Can’t beat the taste of the Contender year after year.

[Boise30]

Nice thinning job!

[JesusisLordandChrist]

My experience (semi personal, with my mother in laws trees) with contender, it’s a great variety while it’s young. But after a couple fruiting seasons it develops fungal and insect issues if not sprayed that are pretty much no differnt from any other variety.

What am I saying? It would be wise to develop a site specific preventive spray program sooner rather than later. Begin spraying before issue arise or you’ll end up with something like this.

I honestly do not think there is such a thing as a no spray peach tree for the long haul. Atleast not on my zone 7a southern IL site there isn’t.

[Sharbecr]

I certainly agree with you regarding the Contenders. I have four of them along with an early peach that I can’t name. All produced this year and many of the fruits contained an Oriental Fruit Moth larva in the pit. I usually spray one round of insecticide in the spring just after petal drop. I’m researching how to eradicate or, at the least, prevent damage from the OFM. I’m thinking about just making several rounds of Surround (kaolin clay) as the peaches go through their growth stages. I’m bound to prevent this year from re-occurring because the fruits were all good in size after thinning and their taste was superb.