Late season Peaches

Good point. I think the HC was ripe around the start of October, which puts it only 2-3 weeks later. I should focus on the October varieties.

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DWN lists HC ripening window as September 19 to October 2, so yes, itā€™s only about two weeks difference.

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Bob - you nailed it (for me). August Flame should be the latest possible time for me in Virginia to get peaches before frost - as you said maybe not. That is why it is worth the big $$$ for me. A good guide for my area -

http://www.saundersbrothersfarmmarket.com/page/Estimated-Ripening-Schedule

The link shows the ripening time for the entire season for a variety of peaches including some California varieties. Even though they are only 45 minutes north of me they are in a much more mountainous area of Virginia,

Saunders Brothers is the only commercial grower in Central Virginia that is really into growing peaches - there peaches are wonderful fresh (and expensive). They run a commercial nursery but as far as I know they do not sell fruit trees.

Well stupid me - I just looked at the link -

http://www.saundersbrothersfarmmarket.com/page/Estimated-Ripening-Schedule

And Saunders Brothers a local nursery grows Autumn Flame - it is there last peach for the season. I would have thought it would have been later than that but our season started two to three weeks early due to the warm spring weather. Now I feel much better about ordering the Autumn Flame - if Saunders can grow it I canā€¦

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You love the lower acid types but I like Indian Free more than HC, although it is a useful late peach to me for cooking. It does have flavor. My Victorias, unfortunately, are already ripening, but those two still need a week. The Vics may almost be done by then.

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That makes sense and something I would do if I were using Nemaguard. But, I wonder if burying the rootstock would completely allay the problem (speaking of Nemaguard here)? It seems such an easy fix, I wonder why southern growers wouldnā€™t have done it.

I have heard that some rootstocks impart hardiness, or lack thereof, to the scion portion of the tree. I did a brainless google and here is one that popped up. I note the studies donā€™t mention if the rootstocks were buried, but they seem to imply the rootstocks have some impact on the scion portion of the tree.

ā€œTsipouridis and Thomidis (2005) found that the root-stocks effected the frost resistance of ā€˜May Crestā€™ peach ranging from 0 to 55 % of flowers that were damaged from frost. Similarly in Pecan, Smith et al. (2001) found that trees on some rootstocks were more susceptible to early frost damage than others. Data were pooled for all cultivars on the rootstocks making the rootstock scion interaction unrecognizable, possibly diluting the effect of the rootstock on more susceptible varieties. The differences ranged from 0 to 9 % of trees on a given rootstock that were expected to die due to the extensive damage resulting from the early frost. In pistachio, Epstein et al. (2004) found that frost killed 41 % of pistachio trees with 72 % of the surviving trees being damaged while another rootstock showed zero death and only 4 % of trees were damaged. Chilling injury was also markedly controlled by rootstock for the grapefruit variety ā€˜Marshā€™ (McCollum et al. 2002).ā€

Again, I think itā€™s probably a good idea to bury the roostock if we are talking Nema in the Northeast or Midwest. Iā€™m just not sure if it would completely mitigate the issue. I just donā€™t know.

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Mine dropped early this year for some reason, about a week ago, but 2/3 of each peach was absolutely fantastic!!! The other 1/3 of each peach had a ā€œcallousyā€ patch on the bottom from one of my sprays. I think maybe I used Daconil after the fruit formed. Canā€™t remember exactly. Other varieties had this also, but it didnā€™t affect them much at all, other than cosmetically. The Indian Free seemed to take it worse, but I was thrilled with what I got to sample. In fact I just planted another Indian Free that Iā€™ve had grafted all summer on Prunus Americana in a root bag. I put it in a really good location that Iā€™ve been saving for something good. Iā€™m still a little worried about it ripening regularly on time for me, but Iā€™ve tried them under ripe and I still like them. I think our average first frost is Oct 10ish, and I think they would normally ripen for me the first week of October. Yikes, hereā€™s hopingā€¦

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Our latest peach is called Halloween. It came from Arboreum. It will be ready in about a week.

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It looks like that should be a relatively safe one for you. It looks like you are at most 2 weeks behind the estimate given by the TomorrowsHarvest site of early September. Iā€™m a couple hundred miles North of you and know I can ripen a peach they have at mid-September.

Looking at the list, my finalists are:
Kandi Korn- Early Oct, interesting colored flesh
Pumpkin Spice- early Oct, red marbled flesh
September Snow Saucer- mid Sept, white donut
October Sugar Nectarine- Early Oct
Autumn Marvel- late Sept
October Snow Nectarine- Early Oct, firm

I should add some then- I donā€™t think I have any early season nects.

If I could get my other mid-late varieties up to 15-18 brix, Iā€™ll be pretty happy. While I certainly wouldnā€™t turn away the 20-30 brix fruit that Fruitnut gets, but 15-18 is quite tasty.

I like high acid fruit too. The only one I really donā€™t like is low-acid, low-sugar. And thatā€™s what I got this year. I let a lot of the peaches get very ripe, hoping to get the sugar up and instead they just lose most of their acid. Many seem to like them, but Iā€™m not one of them.

Iā€™ve heard enough good things about it that I decided to graft it this spring. Unfortunately, it was one of the peaches that didnā€™t take- I donā€™t think I had any early grafts of it, which were the ones which met with more success.

Have you had it before? How does it taste?

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I hadnā€™t thought of rootstock affect on upper tree, but it makes perfect sense. Thank you for proving me wrong- now Iā€™ve learned something- and something that Harold Tukey apparently never had the opportunity to learn.

The best thing about the time we live in is that knowledge is so much more available and this availability is vastly accelerating the discovery of new knowledge as billions of brains are linked through the internet. A single ant may be an idiotic creature, but an ant colony is collectively a very dynamic organism.

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Let us know!! [quote=ā€œOlpea, post:66, topic:11869ā€]
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I checked on my Blackboy peach yesterday still hard as a rock but a little larger, not much. Hopefully it will be ripe by Oct. :upside_down_face:

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Donā€™t know if this has been mentioned yet, but have you considered Autumnprince? According to this link from NC State, it ripens right around Carnival, and this site, at least, thinks it is the best of the late season peaches.

https://jones.ces.ncsu.edu/files/library/52/peachvariety062.pdf

Check at Boyer Nursery for those Flaming Fury late peach trees. I bought the Fat Lady one earlier this year from them. I has been debating to choose from Big George or Fat Lady. I chose Fat Lady.

I have Indian free and it ripens the first week of October here. This is as late as I can go. So anything that ripens after wonā€™t work here. @BobVance if you need scion I can provide a lot of any size needed. I crossed Indian free as I like it so much , hoping for a slightly earlier peach. I used Arctic Glo which is even better than Indian Free. I can provide scion to Glo for anybody who wants some. Ripens August 1st here. Glo is my favorite stone fruit, a nectarine btw.

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Iā€™m curious as to how you established that that is the absolute limit. Does it fail years with late spring?

i guess Iā€™m too dramatic in my statements. You could probably squeak out another week here. Still Iā€™m afraid the cold weather wonā€™t be conducive to good peaches.
Luckily IF is a late bloomer here and it has produced every year except when all stone fruit buds died the year of the vortex sitting right on top of us.

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I bought a few Indian Free peaches at the local farmers market yesterday. At 11 Brix they are not enjoyable for me, but I can definitely project that at a higher Brix it can be a great peach.

I wonder how one was able to grow 11 Brix peaches in Californiaā€™s central valley, it requires some special talent and effort. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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You only need pick them green. Allows them to survive on the grocery shelf for many extra hours.

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Last year the tree gave about 4 peaches and we enjoyed them but I canā€™t remember much about it. I picked one today that had cracked, so I will eat it soon and let you know.