Figured I’d show you my latest crop of PF-9’s. I’ve been picking peaches off the tree in ones and twos for the last 4-5 days but today it seemed like most were dead ripe or almost there. I would have left a few more on the tree (still have about 4-5 left to pick) but after the last 3 days I have found bags ripped open and fruit missing. Just this morning I found 3 bags ripped to shreds and the peaches gone with the stone below. Few days ago same thing. That is about 6-8 peaches the birds have eaten!! Ugh!! But as promised, here is the latest batch:
I will tell you this, this is probably my most favorite peach due to the aroma and taste. To me it has that perfect balance and even if it’s picked a little hard, it doesn’t really lose that flavor. For those that either have the tree or tried this peach what are your opinions?
How old is your tree, and does PF-9 do reliably well year-to-year?
I have a three year old PF-17 that had loads of blossoms and couldn’t hack the winter, there’s I think 6 or 7 peaches on it is all.
Interestingly my three year old Madison is loaded, but most of my trees that had blossoms got hit late and so I only have Redhaven and Madison in great numbers.
I have a few trees of PF9A-007, which I think is the peach you’re referring to. For us, it ripens a few days before Redhaven. I like the peach quite a bit for it’s window. I wish it was just a few days earlier, as I really miss a good yellow peach in the week prior to Redhaven for my area. I have Harken, which I don’t like for that window (very unreliable in challenging spring weather). Clayton seems to be better and may yet prove to be the best option.
PF9A-007 is a couple days after Clayton and Harken, but is a fantastic peach. My trees produced loads of fruit in this partial crop year. The fruit sized very nicely despite heavy fruit loads, and tasted good.
I keep saying this, but you’ll find your tree will produce significantly larger fruit once it matures.
Going on 4 years now. So only really had 2 years worth of crop. Last year it produced pretty darn well and if it wasn’t for bac spot, PC, and a little brown rot it would have done pretty darn well last year. This year with my 2 sprays and the Clemson bags the only issue was Captan burn from using a sticker.
Yep, thats the one! And I really missed a whole year of growth due to the size of the tree because of the lateness of my order. The original trunk was a good size and the only branching was occurring pretty high up compared to the rest of my trees. You’ll have to remember this tree is in a 4-in-1 planting. So I was lucky the first year to get a bud to break about an inch above the graft union so I spent the whole first year training, shaping, and getting that growing. After year one the main trunk got the axe and my new trunk took over.
This year I came down pretty hard on all my trees to get them back into shape so I lost a decent amount of fruiting wood on most of them except Saturn lol!! Saturn just seem to grow and grow producing flowers every few inches on almost all the branches.
Well there are a few bird hits, but overall not too bad. I just think they’re not showing up in the picture. But we have three outside cats (until nighttime, when they become inside cats) and they patrol over there quite a bit, complete with climbing the trees and knocking an occasional peach off theirselves
Yesterday I found three on the ground: One looked perfect, one had bird damage, and one was partially ate. I can’t imagine a squirrel leaving half a peach (unless a cat was in pursuit) but it made me wonder if a rabbit would try a peach? I see li’l bunnies over there from time to time.
Drops are consumed by voles, chipmunks and rabbits in my yard. To me squirrels grab them…chew on them and then leave them for dead…they’ll go grab a new one…so dumb.
When i prune sometimes i’ll leave some of the branches lay…the next day the branches will all be leafless. Rabbits love that newer growth. They aren’t an issue in summer…but winter comes and they turn into demons.
