Is there any benefit in growing white nectarines over white peaches?
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In my experience white fleshed nectarines have been better than white fleshed peaches. But my experience isn’t under typical conditions. I’m growing in a greenhouse.
But I also haven’t seen people hyped on white fleshed peaches. Most seem to see them as sweet without much flavor.
I’ve found yellow fleshed nectarines best of all. Sweet and highly flavored.
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I thought that Nectarines were more disease prone than peaches. I would not grow a nectarine at all.
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Nectarines are harder to grow than peaches. Like lots of things, you have to work harder if you want the best.
There are people successfully growing nectarines in the Eastern half of the US. It takes a good spray program.
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Yes and is possible but tough. I grow three nectarines and want to add a fourth. Since most of my life I ate yellows I like white better. And whites with more sugar are really hard to grow. Yellowjacket’s love them!
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Thanks! Nectarines are not for me then.
I had grown a white nectarine maybe 12 years ago, but a neighbor’s tree came down and killed it. I just recall the few fruits I got from it were nice, but not enough seasons to learn about any issues. I thought about adding some white nectarines this year but am sticking with white peaches.
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No…but yes.?
ArcticGlo Nect has a benefit that the flesh can be red and its an acid bomb… Some other unobtainable ones that fruitnut grows are on my list for someday also.
I think the Zaiger white nectarines are all mostly worth growing. And the white peaches…
I cant grow them all…but there are alot of amazing white nects and peaches in the Zaiger lineup.
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I love the white peaches I grow. I also love white nectarines, but they get thrip damage because I don’t spray for thrips. The fuzz on the peach prevents most thrip damage. Flavor wise, I would say they are equal. Thinning has a bigger impact than anything else. To me there is just something special about peaches that I prefer, I guess I like the fuzz, so if I had to choose one I would go peach.
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I always skin my peaches I can’t stand the fuzz. Yes easier to grow. Besides Arctic Glo Arctic Jay has some acid and to me tastes fantastic as it has lots of sugar too. Just delicious. I will always grow both peaches and nectarines.
Fruitnut mentions not many people going wild for white peaches. I know one exception and that’s Old Mixon Free. I lost it twice I will try again some day. I only grow one white peach and that’s Indian free. Actually it is a white with red flesh. I love these dried so darn good! I blanche, remove skin and dehydrate.
I have some seedlings that are sweeter and lack the red flesh. They also are amazing dried. Bursting with flavor.
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I love to eat peaches/nectarines in general. The top quality peaches, nectarines white or yellow tasted to me are the same, all delicious. Those that flavors
falls in the middle or less, I prefer white 
, or nectarine over yellow
ones, at least white are sweeter.
White peaches and nectarines has no big differences in taste to me. I may prefer nectarines for lack of fuzzy on the skin. Nectarines may attract a little more insects due to lack of protection on the skin. But peaches got same insects as nectarines do. All needs to keep up the spray schedule to grow insects free and disease free fruits.
I have a Snow Queen nectarine in zone5 for over 10 years. It’s one if my favorite nectarines and is as reliable producer as other peaches here. I took care of it just like I did for all my peaches. No extra cares. To me nectarines are the peaches turn bold🤣
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My nectarines are squirrels magnet. They are so troublesome. The bluejay loves them too. They never got fully ripe, even when I net them. The squirrels would bite through the net and even if they can’t have the whole fruit, their teeth mark is everywhere on the fruits. The same with the bluejay pecking. So, I have to harvest them early. When they are fully ripe, they taste like dripping honey. The juice would ooze out with just one bite.
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This is the reason I grow peaches and nectarines.
BTW, squirrels love peaches as well unfortunately
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I depends on your own tastes and the specific varieties. I consider white peaches to be a bit bland, while certain types of white nects have enough acid and sugar to be a high quality fruit, but some white peaches are certainly better than others, although I’ve only grown about 15 varieties of them in my lifetime. The two I consider worth growing are Saturn and Lady Nancy. Interestingly, Saturn is easier to grow than my favorite yellow saucer peach, TangO’s.
Nectarines are not necessarily much harder to grow than peaches, but that depends on site and region. If you have to control insects and brown rot anyway and are doing so then early nectarines don’t require a lot of extra spray if any. I’ve even seen nectarines do well at sites where the only insect control was Surround but Indar was used as a fungicide- a single app about 2 weeks before harvest.
However, at some sites folks get peaches some years with no spray at all. I can’t say that of nects- they are much more attractive to plum curculio than peaches. The fuzz is a moderate repellent, apparently. Nectarines also seem to be more vulnerable to brown rot.
If you are in the humid region, a good white nectarine to try is Silver Gem. However, I like old fashioned nect flavor with a balance of sugar and acid, which it has. All the low acid varieties have tended to be much more difficult to grow here, Birds and wasps destroy most of the fruit before it is ripe. When you can harvest them ripe they are like a completely new kind of fruit because they can reach brix levels in the high '20’s whereas normal nects here never surpass 17 or so- at least in the manner I manage them at a number of sites in S. NY and CT.
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Got to kill the squirrels and chipmunks. Try zip tying a green rat poison bait to the tree. Set out rat traps with peanut butter. Use bait stations if you got pets to watch out for. If you find a chipmunk burrow, treat it with poison. After the bait is not eaten, fill the burrow If it is dug out again, retreat.
Don’t like to kill animals?
Plant another 5 or 10 peach trees. I’ve tried live trapping squirrels and had little luck.
As a sidenote…
One day a bird got caught in the live racoon trap. It was late and I figured I’d let it go in the morning. Coons came in that night and all that was left was a few feathers and some stains. Coons must have reached into the trap and got the bird. That must have been horrifying way to go.
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I’d see chipmunks stripping white peaches that were just a little bigger than a grape. I had a tree full of Asian Pears and lost a lot of them to squirrels, chipmunks and a windstorm. That was when I got serious about dealing with rodents. We were infested with them.
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That tells you all you need to know. The animals love great fruit just like we do. They’re brix junkies.
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After all these, there are still squirrels taking fruits from the trees☹
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Yeah, they are brix junkies. I now have a cat in the backyard. Hope that help prevent them or at least slow them down this year. I did graft more nectarine, though some of them won’t produce fruits until next year.
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To me nectarine and peaches are like different fruit. At least from the grocery store they are. Still waiting on peaches to actually produce and only just got nectarines last year. I have some miniature and some raspberry nectarine. I hear raspberry nectarine are supposed to have a flavor all it’s own so I look forward to that. The biggest problem with nectarine compared to peaches in my zone is many are not rated for zone 5. I see lots of peaches rated for zone 5 but many nectarine are zone 6 and up. I noticed there same thing with apricot where there are a few apricot hardy to zone 5 or even zone 4 but so many apricot are only hardy to zone 7 and up.
I agree that white nects are quite different than white peaches. I like the white nects more as they tend to have more sweet/sour and flavor. But there are still some really tasty white peaches: Silver Logan, Nectar, Oldmixon Free, and Heath Cling are great white peaches.
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