This issue w/ Honey Blaze actually happened last fall, but I took a pic of it today. When all the rest of the peach/nect trees dropped their leaves last fall, Honey Blaze held its leaves until winter, when they all died and stuck on the tree.
I assume this is a hardening off issue. I did notice some shoots dried up and died over the winter, but the majority seem to be alive. Most of the leaves eventually fell off over the winter, but some leaves are still on the tree, as seen in the pic. The tree needs pruned, which will have to wait until after bloom. Perhaps this kind of thing occurs in warm climates, but this is the first time I’ve seen it happen here.
I planted some outside for the first time last spring. Not sure how many survived the freeze last April. Figured I’d tally all that up when I see how the trees grow out this spring.
One thing I’m sure of it’s a great piece of fruit under the right conditions. I hope yours survive and make great fruit.
I get that on apple shoot tips occasionally, but never on peaches. It always happens on very vigorous shoots, I think the big load of growth hormone overpowers the hardening off hormones. The apples always grow out well from those spots the next spring.
I’ve harvested a couple years fruit and it’s definitely not working for me. The trees don’t harden off real well, as shown in the photo above, but that’s not the problem.
The problem is that I haven’t been able to get good quality fruit. The fruit is very spotty and doesn’t taste very good grown here. I’m sure both issues are related to too much water.
Strangely, it’s one of my worst tasting nectarines. The nects are sweet, but just not much flavor. I have two trees of Honey Blaze and plan to cut both of them down this winter.
I’m sure it’s a completely different fruit grown in a greenhouse significantly limiting water, the way Fruitnut does. I think it’s one of his favorite nects.
I would say it’s definitely water related. My honey kist on citation, which severely dwarfs the tree, but big fruit, tasted amazing, by far the best fruit of the year. My honey blaze were mixed, some really good some blah. The blaze is on lovell. We had a very wet summer which was the biggest problem. THE citation didn’t seem to be affected, by all the rain but the peach and nectarine trees barely grow on it. So my thought is if you have wet summers the blaze series probably isn’t too good. We normally have fairly dry summers here so ime going to keep growing them. When conditions are right they are truly amazing.
Agree with that. At high brix they are the best fruit I grow. Also agree that when conditions don’t allow high brix the low acid nectarines in general are blah.
I don’t currently grow anything on Citation, but I’ve noticed my one peach tree on K1 has larger and sweeter fruit than the same variety on standard roots.
Citation is great on plum, pluot and apricot, however I am very skeptical about its use on peach/nectarine. It severely dwarfs them, and they don’t look as healthy as trees on lovell or guardian. However the fruit is very large and delicious. I have honey kist, fantasia, arctic jay, and arctic star, on citation, the two arctic are actually in pots. Star was ok the others were all great, with kist being amazing. The inground trees didn’t grow anymore than the potted, so I am concerned about the long term health of the trees. I wonder what results others have had with peach/nectarine on citation.
My opinion is that if you have alot of rain in the summer you would be better served by summer beaut, redgold, eastern glo, and perhaps fantasia. However if you have dry summers I would give some of the honey series a try. My experience with them has been mostly great. If you can get them to grow an get the little sugar spots, they are the best fruit you can eat, in my humble opinion.
I’ve had a couple of stunted nectarine trees on Citation. But most have been large and vigorous. The fruit is large and high quality. My issue with Citation has been severe crown gall infestation. It’s so bad I won’t plant another tree on that root.
Here, too, or canker, it is always in trouble, at least for me in the northern part of the Midwest.
Still the trees are producing, I will avoid it, Lovell works fine for me.
