Freestone and Clingstone

General Fruit Growing
1

Just a few small peach orchards in my area and none of them sell any clingstone peaches. This means no local home grown peaches for sale in June and early July.

I know folks love the freestone peaches, but I’m hoping that a local tree ripened clingstone peach is better than no local peach at all. I really don’t object to eating around the pit and I’m hoping my blackberry and blueberry customers will accept the clingstone peaches in June and come back for some freestone peaches later in the season one they get ripe.

Any thoughts on clingstone compared to freestone?

2

Blue

Just curious what variety of peaches are you growing?

Tony

3

Early peaches always sell well even if they are imperfect (split pits, cling, etc).

4

Tony

I have Rich May, Carored, Ruby Prince, Red Haven, Fire Prince, Winblow, Contenter, and Flame Prince,

Hope to have peaches from early June to late August, Need to add a late peach, perhaps Last Chance or Autumnprince

5

Blue

Out of those varieties. which one is your favorite? Also the sweetest?

Tony

6

I have never eaten most of these peaches!

They were chosen to ripen in sequence from a list provided by a large NC grower and some research from NC State. Some of the variety I wanted were not available and I had to make substitutions.

I really like Contenter. Its a sweet peach and well known in my area.

7

Flameprince doesn’t ripen, until September. How much later do you want?

8

September would be great! Is that the date for Columbia?

My sheet from NCSU shows the date as 8/12 for the sandhills area of NC, but since I have never grown it before I’m not sure about the date for my area.

I’m trying to overlap the late peaches with the August/September apples.

9

Clemson has it ripening late August early September at their Musser research farm. I’m usually about 2 weeks later. Cumberland Valley has it ripening 12 days after Elberta, with Autumnprince a full 16 days later than that.
I have the same plan that you have. I want to spread my harvest from June- Sept. I have Flameprince, Augustprince, Fireprince, Julyprince, Winblo and Harvester.
I just added Julyprince this year on the recommendation of the guys at Cumberland Valley(Fruit Tree Farm). According to them, it’s their # 1 selling peach. All of their commercial growers are planting it, because of how large the fruit is. When I called to place my order, they were stocked out and told me not to order anything, but to wait until next year, just to get this peach. That’s how much they raved about it. Luckily Vaughn Nursery still had a few left, and on Guardian, so I bought it from them

10

I would really like some clarity on when Autumnprince ripens. Cumberland Valley has it ripening +30 Elberta (which is roughly +60 Redhaven). Vaughn nursery has it ripening +45 Elberta.

However, Rutgers doesn’t talk of it as that late of peach. Penn State has it ripening with Redskin (which ripens with Elberta). I tend to trust university publications more than nurseries. Can any offer any insight on this?

11

Rick, of the peaches you mentioned that you grow, which do you find to be the least fussy, disease wise?
I think Scott really likes Winblo (I think it’s Scott).

12

Appleseed70

This will be my first production year on these new trees, so I don’t have any real experience with them or much experience with peaches in general. Contender handled the 23 degree temp during bloom much better than the others and required a huge amount of thinning.

13

Olpea

The notes I hve from NCState show Autumnprince ripens around Sept 20 with the notes - Large size and good color, best of the late peaches. I can not locate the 2010 report but here is the link to a earlier report::

http://jones.ces.ncsu.edu/files/library/52/peachvariety062.pdf

Do you have any trouble selling your clingstone peaches

14

Cumberland has it ripening 28 days after Elberta, while Clemson shows it anywhere from 9/3 -9/23 at Cooley Farms.

15

Thank you Blueberry and Rayrose.

I’ve been looking for a very late peach, something which ripens after Victoria, which is supposed to ripen +47 Redhaven.

I planted three PF Big George from Grandpa’s Orchard this spring to try it, but it looks like none of these trees are going to leaf out. They had broken bud in the box (which is not uncommon) but after I planted them all the buds died. The bark is still green, but I will be surprised if they live and push growth. It’s very rare that peach trees die at planting and I can’t understand why all three of their trees died. My only thought is that they sent them very late in the season, but it really wasn’t that hot when I planted them (which I did right away).

Blueberry,

I googled the names of the authors on the link you provided. Roger Galloway is an extension agent for NC State Univ. Garrett Johnson is a peach grower, and at one time was president of North Carolina Peach Growers Assoc. Michael Parker is an extension tree fruit specialist at NC State. I would expect the last two guys to know this stuff.

Nevertheless, I’m still a bit confused when Augustprince ripens. According to Rutgers, it ripens +37 Redhaven.

According to a paper written by D. Layne and W.R. Okie (developer of the peach) they are saying Augustprince ripens 3-7 days after Early Augustprince (which they say ripens a few days after Cresthaven). Cresthaven ripens about +27 Redhaven which would put Early Augustprince at around +30, which would make Augustprince somewhere around +33 to +37, which is what Rutgers has it.

http://www.clemson.edu/hort/peach/pdfs/earlyandaugust08.pdf

Some peaches ripen at different times (relative to Redhaven) based upon where they are grown, but I wouldn’t expect that much difference in the numbers. I may go ahead and try Augustprince to see when it actually ripens here.

I’ve not had any trouble selling clingstones. Pretty much everyone wants fresh peaches as early as possible, even if they are clingstone. I was shocked to see the first peaches of the season selling in Price Chopper the other day for 4 bucks/pound. I think the only reason they were getting that much was because they were the first peaches of the season. The peaches didn’t even look very good (green).

I’ve had a bit of problem w/ PF1. Some of the more shaded peaches can lack flavor. I’ve pretty much solved this problem by only selling the first picking and a few of the second picking to try to keep the quality of this peach as high as possible.

16

Olpea,
That’s an older paper from Dr. Layne. Newer data show Augustprince ripening on 8/17 in both 2010& 2011,
8/7 in 2012 at Cooley and 7/30/2012 at Musser. That’s quite a wide range, but I guess that’s why they named if Augustprince.
My tree is only in its second leaf and hasn’t fruited yet. I would imagine that it would fruit later for you. If you’re looking at an even later peach, you might want to try Flameprince, but I would think Autumnprince might be too late for you.

17

OK, I just realized I have been confusing the name Augustprince with Autumnprince. That’s why I haven’t been able to make heads or tails of these ripening times and been so mixed up in this discussion. I’m sorry for the confusion Blueberry and Rayrose. Hopefully I only temporarily confused myself and not a lot of other people in the process.

Dang, those names are too close for comfort.

18

Olpea, I’ll be happy to send you scionwood of Augustprince and Flameprince and you can try them out, but I still think Autumnprince might be too late for you. You might want to call the guys at Cumberland Valley and get their opinion. I can also send Julyprince.

Ray

19

Thank you so much for the kind offer. I may take you up on the Flameprince wood. I have several varieties which ripen in that window, but are patented. The nice thing about the Prince series is that they didn’t patent them, so they are free to propagate. One disadvantage of that series is that supposedly they are a bit winter tender for my area. Of course that wouldn’t be an issue for you or Blueberry.

I have a Julyprince. I think I planted it last year along with some other Prince peaches to see how they do here. Sounds like it’s supposed to produce some very large peaches.

I think Autumnprince may still ripen here. I once grew Indian Free and it was very late here (ripened in Oct. as I recall).

20

Is Indian Free the same as Indian Cling? I can’t find IF in any of the Cumberland Valley catalogs.