Where can I find Contender Peach trees for sale in the Middle Tennessee area?
Try Vaughn Nurserry in McMinnville, TN. It has a lot of varieties including Contender and has one of the best prices.
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Many thanks, mamuang.
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OK, @MikeC, let’s continue here if you don’t mind.
Thanks for the info. 80lb is a lot of peaches! I imagine they weigh maybe 1/3-1/2lb at the most, so we’re talking about 200 fruits? Sounds like the late April bloom last year made the difference.
My Contender has some decent scaffolds, but they tend to be a bit upright and not evenly spread out around the tree. I’ve done some pulling down of some of the scaffolds, but I may also have to do some hinge cuts to get them down to a better angle.
I also have what appears to be almost a central leader branch, so I’m thinking of heading that back to an outward facing bud so that I can get a branch going on that side of the tree and open up the center.
I planted this tree a year after the Redhaven and Coralstar and the difference is startling with their sizes. The major difference at the time of planting was that the older trees were thinner (7/16"), and the Contender was about 3/4". But that shouldn’t have made that much of a difference in growth, I’m sure it’s the soil.
I agree. It is most likely the soil and weather. Those two things make all the difference in the world. I would be careful with bending down the branches too much. Peach branches are very brittle. They are not at all like apple branches. I just let mine grow the way they were and just cut out the ones that crossed or went straight up, like water shoots. It worked out fine, so far. Once they get settled you can make some adjustments with the openness of the tree, if you like. All mine seem to do fine fruiting being more full. I had too much fruit on one branch last year. I was greedy and we had a long dry spell for about 6 weeks. I should have thinned them out when they were golf ball size. I thought if I thinned them out too much all I would get is a bit of peach surrounded by a golf ball size pit. Well, we had a huge rain for two days in a row and the peaches filled out quickly and the one big branch broke. At least it broke and tilted to the ground without completely breaking off. The fruit still looked good. I left it on to see of the fruit would ripen. It ripened all right. I was gone for about 4 days and when I came back the fruit was all gone. All that was left was a lot of pits under the branch. I could see the little trail of whatever critter came through my field ( I could see the trail it left in the taller grass) and climbed up the branch like a ladder. LOL.
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