Yes sir that is the what great tasting nectarines look like. So early for you, you lucky dog. I have just a couple of honey kist and a couple of blaze this year due to freeze, and they are of course a long way off still. May have to consider a green house some day. Enjoy those
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Thank you for your input. That’s what I appreciate about this forum. Learning what works elsewhere. If I were isolated here by myself I’d be wondering if I was just making things up.
I hope you can make a crop again soon and the weather cooperates to make good quality.
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Please let us know when you start selling them.
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Perspective is funny. We can’t get the fruit that sweet, but with a greenhouse I could for sure. Everybody here is used to our fruit the way it is. People often describe my fruit as crazy sweet, but it’s not, it’s just they never had a 20 brix peach before. About the best I can do most years, if even that. I get a few sugar spots, not a lot. For outside growing conditions are decent here. We beat the south that has no peaches this year. Our commercial orchards have no losses this year.
Maybe in a few years after I move I will put in a greenhouse and try to get fruit like this. If my daughter keeps advancing at GM, maybe I can get a loan from her!
Last year would have been the best brix ever with like 2 inches of rain for the summer months, My stupid boarder who was supposed to water my plants watered the trees. I didn’t know till the end of the season. Argh! He ruined a good year! My bad, I obviously wasn’t clear about the trees. I wanted him to water my 125 container fruits, not in ground stuff! Although the in ground berries did need a lot of water.
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Oh your commercial! But you are no longer apples and grapes. 
What are figs, apricots, nectarines and pluots? I think their some kind of fruit. I don’t think I like them. Oh wait, I can’t remember ever eating any of them.
Ya your right, I need to get outside of my box. 
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Looking good FruitNut!
I had some 23 brix Artic Star this year (no water deficit).
Looks like in one pic they are in pots in the ground - then covered. Did you replant or keep in pots? No way I could do that tight of spacing in the ground… Way too much vigor with mine!
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None of the trees are in pots. All are in ground, in rows, on the trellis. The black things between the rows are saucers that I set my fig plants in to help keep the media wet. So not only are there fruit trees in 5.5ft rows but in between I’m growing fig plants. Pretty efficient use of space. I had over 150 fig plants in there last yr in three alleys. So I could get near 300 if I used all alleys for figs. Right now over 100 fig plants.
A 23 brix Arctic Star is usually excellent, nice going…!!
What does your pruning look like on them? Just take them back to the CL each year?
After pruning my artic star back to a whip, it was 10-12 ft tall and 8 feet wide the first year…
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Can’t guess what the shiny aluminum foil looking contraption is in the middle of the picture. I give up. Sort of looks like a bird house but I know it can’t be. Enlighten me please.
Also, is the lack of spreading of the scaffolds a function of the root stocks that you are using or is it a result of pruning? It sort of looks like columnar apple trees I’ve seen at nurseries.
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I summer prune the tops off to maintain about 7ft height. In winter shorten some of the fruiting shoots. The real pruning starts soon. That will be renewal pruning which will take most of the top off after harvest and/or next winter. In the long run I want two shoots/trunks on each tree. They’ll be pruned down low every 3-4 yrs on an alternating schedule. Final tree spacing after I get everything sorted out will probably be about 4ft between trees. That will allow 2 shoots per tree.
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That’s the temperature sensor that runs the heater and cooling system. It reads too high in the sun unless it’s shielded.[quote=“tennessean, post:29, topic:11304”]
Also, is the lack of spreading of the scaffolds a function of the root stocks that you are using or is it a result of pruning? It sort of looks like columnar apple trees I’ve seen at nurseries.
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Yes it is a central leader type system. Pruning is explained above. Thank you for your interest…!!
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Don’t you fear dieback when stubbing one central leader? In my experience that can easily happen with stone fruit, especially with peaches.
Did you consider a pruning regime like in a normal tall spindle axis system? Of course you need to adapt that to peaches. That would mean to every year stub back some sideshoots to a vegetative bud near the central leader and leaving other shoots for fruiting this year, stub back next year.
I understand that could potentially produce a more dense tree than you are aiming at. But are you sure you can stub back one of 2 central leaders and keep that leader alive and growing? I always run into trouble when I prune back older wood in peach trees to a stub hoping it will produce new wood from that stub.
That said, my experience with peaches grew in a much colder climate than yours (zone 7). Maybe thats all the difference needed.
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I won’t stub back to bare wood. I’d cut back to a low side shoot/shoots.
The system you propose is a possibility that I might pursue at some point. The problem with peaches is they are so apically dominant that they only want to grow vigorously near the top of the tree. I have good new wood up there every yr. Actually at this point the fruit trees are a sideline to my fig nursery operation.
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