I have a earlystar… this was yr 2 for it… it ripened a few peaches this year on June 15 here in southern middle TN z7a.
It is a vigorous grower very healthy tree. The few peaches I got this year were large and tasty.
Does anyone know if the very early ripening peach varieties… also bloom earlier … perhaps making them more succeptable to late frost ?
I have a north facing hillside I could plant one on… if that would help.
Starks has a ripening chart that shows…
Flaming Fury PF1 -30
EarlyStar -18
Of Redhaven.
-30… wow that would be a very early peach.
My earlier ripening peaches have less pest and BR issues… which is why I am considering very early ripening varieties.
That sounds like a pick your poison scenario. Critters or the weather.
Vaughn has these from the list above. Carolina Gold and Redhaven are getting pretty far up with 1050 and 950 chill hours respectively. The best I recall, Stark carries a few of the others.
Carolina Gold
Challenger
Contender
Julyprince
Redhaven
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A very important question!
In general, high chill hour peaches bloom later than low chill hour peaches which can help avoid frost damage. You may have noticed that many of the current peach varieties developed in NC like Contender, or Carolina Gold require high chill hours. They were developed for an area where late frost/freeze is often a problem and frequent late frosts have sent a lot of commercial peach growers in NC to the poor house!
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Found this on the Flaming Fury PF1
There are lots of Flaming Fury varieties… but this is for the PF1.
It says a month before Redhaven… Hardy, Blooms Late…
The Pic of the fruit… they could sure do better on that.
That “much less quality” statement… hmmmm.
But if there are no other peaches ripe at the time… perhaps they would be good enough.
TNHunter
I want a Cal Red Peach Tree but it wont be available til next year i dont think.
Here is the review of it
Here is the tree for sale (2022)
Im holding a spot for it…i think.
I grew PF1 for a number of years, over a decade ago. At that time I thought all home grown/tree ripened peaches were great. Certainly if the best most outside peaches are picked, they are decent for such an early peach.
That said, most of the peaches don’t measure up to a good quality tree ripened peach. I would skip this variety. Go with a little later variety if you want a dessert quality peach.
Because of my stupidity a decade ago, I recommended this peach as an early peach. @mamuang and @BobVance both planted this peach based on my recommendation and pulled it out because of quality issues. It’s not worth growing, imo.
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I’d agree to skip PF1. It ripened in the first week of July for me. 9-11 brix, lots of split pits and only ~OK flavor. Rich May is better (larger, less damage, etc) and even a bit earlier. Here’s one from June 26th this year:
In terms of brix, RM wasn’t that different from PF1, but it probably would have been even better if I had thinned it properly…I probably had the branch loaded with about 2X the peaches it should have had.
But, if you want really good fruit at that time (and don’t have too many late frosts), just plant some apricots. They are so much better at that time of year. Of course, apricots keep dying on me, so they have their problems too…
I didn’t actually pull it. I put a bunch of grafts on it, then had it die. It’s not just apricots that I kill. But apricots have a much lower survival rate than peaches.
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Thank you both @opela and @BobVance for help on early peaches.
Here in my southern TN location my early elberta and rising star both ripen mid june.
I have another Reliance ? That ripens July 10 or so. The later ripening peach always seem to suffer more pest damage OFM mostly… and this year BR wiped out most of the later peaches… where I harvested several of the earlier peaches before the BR showed up.
I dont spray… and yes it is almost impossible to get good peaches without at least some spray. I may have to at least try an all organic approach next time.
Part of my HOPE for a very early peach is that it may suffer even less pest damage and BR. I hope so anyway.
I checked out the Rich May some this evening… in SC they say it ripens mid may early june.
Per DWN 800-900 chill hours… I think my location is good for 1200. Perhaps it will not bloom to early for me.
I have the RM on my try next time list now. New orchard in a year or two.
Thanks again.
Found a YouTube on the Rich May… has me craving a nice ripe peach now.
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Any reviews for Bounty Peach? I think its a WV bred cultivar.
@krismoriah … at Starks… 2 reviews… both 5 star. One used to get them from a local orchard and said it was her favorite peach. She described it as large delicious juicy sweet. Ripens early August per Starks so more of a late season peach.
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So kind of like an O’Henry but with more disease resistance?
We grow Rich May but we removed about half of the trees because of frost damage or split pits. Called Favorrich by Vaughn and some other nursery. Excellent peach in some years.
Carrored was developed in SC and is part of the "Peach Picks for SC videos from Clemson you posted. It’s is about 2 weeks later - another clingstone
Rubyprice ripens about 10 days after after Carrored but suffers from split pitts to n many years.
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I grew Bounty for quite some time, both in my back yard and about a dozen trees of it at the orchard. It ripens in the Loring window and was released as a commercial replacement for Loring.
This peach performed horrible for me. It never produced anything close to a bounty. I had 5+ years of harvests off these trees and basically got very little. Any challenging weather would wipe out the peach crop on these trees.
One year we did have a crop on the Bounty trees, but we happened to have some rain close to the time of harvest and virtually all of them split. I can’t say enough bad things about this variety. Largely because I invested so much time in the trees and got almost nothing.
Loring, even though not considered a productive peach in challenging climates even performed better than Bounty. And my Loring trees are in a less favorable (lower) spot in the orchard.
Sometimes people receive mislabeled trees and so the information they collect doesn’t match the variety they think they have. But the Bounty trees I put in were from two different nurseries on two different rootstocks. They all performed the same and had identical fruit/flowers.
For the Loring window, Baby Crawford is reliable and quite tasty. Contender (in the same window) is even more reliable (set near a full crop last season with -17F winter temps and a late freeze) but Contender isn’t quite as tasty as Baby Crawford, but still a decent peach. Veteran is an old peach for this window that has performed well and tastes pretty good.
I have all three of those for that window, but blessedly, no more Bounty.
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Do any of you have experience with planting peaches or apricots… (or specifically more late frost succeptable fruit trees) on different slopes on your property to help with late frost issues ?
The 3 peaches I have at my current location are all planted on ridge top flat… 900 ft elevation… the rising star is on a bit more of a eastern slope than the others. Last spring all 3 started blooming within just a few days of each other… rising star first… reliance ? a day or two later then 3 days later the early elberta.
At my new location I have plenty of ridge top space… but also have a section that slopes gently to the east mostly… a bit south east… and another area that slopes to the north.
It seems to me that a peach tree planted on a northern slope… the ground would be slower to warm up… and hopefully the tree would be slower to wake up and bud and bloom.
I know for sure planting ginseng on a eastern slope… it will first year sprout and send up 3 leafers… 2 to 3 week’s ahead of same seed planted on a northern slope.
Not sure how much that might affect fruit tree blooming though.
It is generally recommended to plant peaches on a high north slope, for the reason you suggest. I’ve not been able to do that, so I have no personal experience how much it helps.
Not only does the soil remain cooler, as evidenced by the snow lasting longer on north slopes, but the trees themselves get less sunshine, which supposedly also delays bloom in peaches.
There was a fruit specialist in MO who experimented with spraying peach trees w/ white latex paint to delay bloom. Her researched showed sprayed trees delayed bloom about a week, which suggests trees themselves wake up earlier with more sunlight, regardless of soil temps.
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My peaches are on a slight north facing slope at an elevation that is slightly higher than adjacent property. I’m not positive how much it has reduced frost damage to my peaches but it’s not unusual for me to have peaches when other small orchards in my area get frosted out. One grower has a big pond and proper sprinklers and sometimes stays up all night pumping water to try to protect his peaches but my site often produces peaches when his will not.
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Thanks all… I will make good use of my north slope area… j plums come to mind and peaches apples.
I had a couple j plums several years ago… for a dozen or so years… they both bloomed mid Feb. We got one good crop off those in all that time. Perhaps a Shiro on a north slope will do a little better.
Take a look at hybrid plums Purple Heart etc.
May as well throw some persimmons in there too.
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