@Chikn, i’m south of Des Moines in Madison county and not a single bloom on any of my peaches. Also, most of my sweet cherries did not bloom as well. I think my lapins only had like 10 total flowers make it. I have a couple apples blooming, so there is hope there. Two years in row I have had zero peach blooms.
1 Like
No blooms on my peach trees. Totally expected with the temperatures. I’m just happy they are all still alive.
My White Gold did not bloom either. It did last year and set fruit. I’m assuming it lost blooms to the cold as well.
I had -33F …and i found 1 bloom…
Saturn donut grafted on wild plum (with multiple other things also grafted)… not protected or anything. Actually the branch hangs over the driveway. I’m sure a squirrel will get it.
1 Like
I have Redhaven & Madison that were loaded with blossoms. Intrepid and PF17 have several but not loaded (50ish maybe). Redhaven is in it’s 6th leaf while the others are in their 5th leaf.
I think that matters, as I have Indian Free, Reliance, Contender, and PF24C are all in their 4th leaf (I should say that Contender had about 15 blossoms while the others have between 1 & 4 blossoms is all.
They’re all very nice sized trees however, and I really kind of expected more out of them this year. Still, I recorded -17 on 1/29 so I’m happy to know that when these trees get a few years under their belt, they can probably be counted on to do something…
2 Likes
No blooms on my four peaches, including a Contender. We didn’t get the brutal cold like the Midwest got this winter, got down to 0 one night, but the winter temps seemed to last longer this season than others.
My peach trees are leafing out nicely now, so while they appear to be healthy, I guess the fruit buds were damaged somehow. Very puzzling and disappointing, because we have not had a hard freeze in about 6 weeks.
My low was -20f. I was hoping more would have at least a few blooms, but it wasn’t to be.
-20f 100% bloom kill on
Contender 5th leaf
Red Haven 5th leaf, but tree is sick
Flat wonderful 5th leaf
True gold 4th leaf
PF 8 3rd leaf
Whitegold cherry 4th leaf
Sweetheart cherry 5th leaf
Van cherry 4th leaf
-20f 90%+ bloom kill
Lapins cherry 5th leaf
Black gold 4th leaf
-20f 0% bloom kill
Montmorency cherry 5th leaf
CJ and Romeo 4th leaf
2 Likes
If it makes you feel any better, this is the worst peach year I’ve ever had in terms of blooms. Most of them had quite a few blooms but apparently they had been damaged before opening so they just bloomed and fell off, as if it was a fertilization problem but of course it wasn’t.
Like you said, we didn’t have a particularly harsh winter this year, but in early spring we had the 2 coldest nights of the whole year, back to back 12 and 13 degree nights. I’m sure that is what got mine and I suspect yours too? Whatever happened, I’m sorry you are getting no peaches again this year. VERY frustrating. I know there is a HUGE difference between having a small crop and having NO crop. Hopefully next year will be your year. Looking at the positive, without fruit your trees should be able to put on a lot of good growth. I encourage you to spray them a few times even though they have no fruit. I didn’t used to spray my peaches if they didn’t have fruit, but what would happen is that either OFM or PC would end up laying an egg and hatching a larvae that would burry into the tips of all my peach tree limbs and cause them to flag (die). The reason this was a big problem is that is cost my trees a LOT of good growth that they otherwise would have been able to put on that year without fruit. By the time the tip would die and a new tip would grow back, I’d lost what would have been 6-10 inches of new growth. SO I try to hit all my tips with some insecticide at least 3 times a year. I don’t spray nearly as thoroughly or as often as I do with fruit, but keeping my tips growing makes it worth the work and cost. At least that is my experience- I’m curious if others here have had same experience or if they just stop spraying peaches completely when they do not have fruit??? (my experience goes for plums too, btw)
2 Likes
Thanks, I recall your warnings about ofm damage to peach and plum trees. So, I’ve been hitting some of them (and pluots) with some Surround, but am seeing some yellow flagging on some of my pluots already. I don’t know if it’s ofm hits already, my guess is either new growth, and or excessive rain. I saw this last year after very heavy rains not too long after they were planted.
Regarding not getting peaches, not much I can do about that, but I am glad we might get some apples and pears off our newer trees for the first time.
Plus, we’ve been picking about 1-2 pints of fresh strawberries already from our backyard patch, and our big gooseberry is loaded with fruit already, they should be ready in about a month. And, my thornless blackberries and some raspberries are blooming, so those should start being ready to pick next month, too.
Personally no matter how much rain I’ve gotten or for how long- and even in my wetter areas, I’ve never had tips die related to rain. Never. But I always see it from OFM larvae- every year, every few weeks. And just so you know, I’ve already seen it this year on my peaches too (I don’t spray my non-fruit carrying peaches very carefully so I miss some tips and they have already been hit.
You probably know this, but one way to tell if the flagging you have seen (yellow tips that soon wilt and then die completely) is to take a really sharp knife or razor blade and slit the living part of the stem below the flagged part open a few inches down. Many times if it is an OFM then you can find the little larvae in the hollow part of the living stem tip. Not everytime, so try it a few times, but I always can find the little white worm after a few cuts of my stems below the flagged part. Just a thought to help you determine what is causing the problems you are seeing.
But yea- I’m very excited for you that you will finally be getting some fruit this year!
Got to -2°F at our coldest, no bloom loss here. Maryland.
I’ll check to see if they’ve started to infest the tips. I don’t know if we’re already seeing our first gen of ofm or not, seems early, but I may be wrong.
But, I disagree abt my pluots getting the flagging tips last year was because of ofm and not excessive rain. This started happening in May, after the trees started to grow after planting in early March. We have very good soil which drains very well, but at that time we got so much rain, the soil was super saturated, and these trees did not like it. Once it started to dry up, the leaves perked up. They were later devastated by Jap. beetles, though, more than any other of my fruit trees. And, deer seemed to like browsing on them more than apple trees, even.
This may not be the best thread to post this, but there was some discussion about seedling peach rootstocks earlier in the thread. Thought I’d post a pic of the peach seedlings coming up from last summers planting of peach pits.
This is about a 30’ row.
9 Likes
Do you use a lot of seedling peaches like these as rootstocks for your orchard trees? DO you ever grow any of them out?
I have my first and only seedling peach tree on its 3rd year this year and it has 2 peaches on it. Time will tell if they go full size and taste good, but I’m a bit excited about having (sort of) created my own peach tree. 
(It is 1/2 Indian Free, don’t know what pollinated it). But what has surprised me the most, and the reason for my Q’s above, is the incredible health and growth of this tree. Far and away it is the fastest growing peach I ever had, and also the most lush- its the bushiest, greenest tree ever and just pours out new stems and tips everywhere. Just crazy. It really makes me want to do more seedlings and/or at least use them as rootstocks.
Did I just get lucky or do you find seedlings to be healthier/faster growing/etc?
I am aware that it may turn out to be susceptible to diseases, may be short-lived, non-tolerant of water or drought, or have some other flaw that hasn’t yet revealed itself. In fact it must have something bad- if they all performed like this I doubt anyone would buy traditional rootstocks. Or it may end up being too small or being some kind of giant tree. Can’t wait to see…just curious about your experience and those of anyone else who reads this and has experimented with peach seedlings.
1 Like
Are you growing them out for fruit or rootstock?
A lot of seedlings i’ve grown out of the years (this is store bought fruit) end up being nectarines!
1 Like
I exculsively grow them out to graft.
Once I learned that peach rootstocks we’re mostly used because it was the most abundant seed available from canneries, I figured I could grow my own.
There is a bit more to it than that, but not much.
My own observations have demonstrated to me there is little difference between named peach seedling rootstocks and peach rootstocks I’ve grown myself.
This has been more confirmed that a reputable nursery uses unnamed seedling peach pits to propagate their rootstocks.
I have let some of my seedlings grow out and fruit. Most of the time the fruit is decent, but it’s very unpredictable. I got some white peaches and some yellows. The peaches were certainly better than grocer peaches, but of course very random in their ripening schedule.
Based on my experience, they may be worth growing if someone is purely interested in experiments, otherwise I’d go with already named varieties, if you can get them true to the label.
4 Likes
Two questions about my Contender peach tree.
It was transplanted this spring, has 8 golf ball size peaches. Looking at Adams county nursery chart I see it ripens in August for me. But the fruit is still golf ball size. Will it get there by August or I wonder if the tree is stunt?
Should I feed it urea this late?
Not too long ago, @olpea pointed out that peach development usually stall for a while before start to push growth again heading toward ripening,
2 Likes
Not paying attention here. 
Now that you mention it, I do remember reading that post.
Any thoughts on feeding urea in July?
I personally won’t do it this late for my zone.
I hope others will share their opinions on this matter.
1 Like