Some of the late season peaches I grow or grown are in order of ripening:
Lady Nancy. A good white peach. Very large. It’s a bit of a shy producer, which probably has something to do with why it always produces large fruit. No bac. spot.
Encore- Very reliable producer. I have trouble getting sugar up on this one, but the flavor is pretty peachy.
O’Henry- Pretty much ripens with Encore here. Nice flavored peaches, but every since I planted about a dozen or so at the farm several years ago, their fruit has been knocked off by frosts. The one at the house has never been what I’d call I good producer, but produces OK most years. Part of the problem with the ones at the farm may be they are still a bit young. O’Henry does get bac. spot fairly badly at the farm and may result in their removal.
Laurol-This peach produces well for me in marginal years with good sugar and flavor for a late peach. I know this is in contradiction to Matt’s experience, but I really think a peach variety can differ in different climates and where the peaches are picked on the tree, or how much rain or heat is received the last month before harvest. As an example, we never pick inside picks for number one peaches. If it is too low in the canopy, or two much on the inside, or too small, we don’t sell those as number ones, instead sell them as seconds. I think we are about the only commercial nursery which does this, but it insures our customers who want number ones (what I call “fresh eating peaches”) get the best peaches we have.
The place where the peach is located so important on mature peach trees. It’s really more important than the variety in many cases. What I mean is that I could take just about the best variety we grow and pick peaches from low and inside and they wouldn’t hardly be fit to eat.
When I was at K-State, I took an ag course and the prof. repeatedly said (speaking of hogs) “there are just as much phenotyical differences within a breed, as there are between different breeds”. I have come to believe the same for peaches.
One disadvantage of Laurol is that it does have issues w/ bac. spot., but so far nothing that prevents the marketing of most of the fruit.
PF35-007- Good peach and so far a good producer. No bac. spot.
Autumnstar- Good peach, but shy producer in marginal weather years. No bac. spot
Snow Giant-Terrible bac. spot. Removed
Victoria-Like Alan, I like the peach. No bac. spot. Good producer. Good flavor. It does tend to drop fruit if you don’t stay right on top of the picking. I’ve put in a few more of these every year for the last couple years.
September Snow- Terrible bac. spot. Removed.
Sweet Bagel-This was a very nice flavored yellow flesh donut, but the bac. spot was terrible for me. Removed.
Autumn Prince- Put in a couple of these trees this spring. They were 1/4" trees when I put them in, but one of them bloomed and still has a peach (doesn’t happen often). They are supposed to be very very late peaches. I wanted to see if they would ripen here. Too early to tell anything about bac. spot.
Redhaven ripens generally about the third week in July here. This year they were a week earlier for harvest (in spite of the fact that peaches bloomed three weeks earlier than normal - Mid and late season-peaches tend to want to drift to their normal ripening time despite how early or late the spring comes, in my experience). We picked the first Redhavens here yesterday.
By the way, I had an older man from the FSA in the orchard this morning and gave him a top peach off a Redhaven. He ate it and went on and on about how great it was. Said the best peach he’d ever eaten was a peach he picked off a tree in South Carolina and the peach I gave him was just as good. I did try a few Redhavens today and they were excellent. But, except for last night (in which it rained over an inch) we’ve had normal dry hot weather for a little while here, which produces the best peaches.
