I’ve found that most of my peach varieties will get mealy if left to ripen completely (e.g., complete color change and soften) on the tree. In searching through older posts, I’ve seen this mentioned by some much more experienced fruit growers than me.
I’m wondering if micronutrient deficiencies might contribute to this problem at all, especially boron, which I know can affect some fruit, and is in the low to too low range in my soil and plants. Does anyone know anything about that possibility of micronutrient deficiencies contributing to mealy peaches?
Or do I just need to pick them before they fully change color and soften?
Mark, I hope you figure something out on this subject. Nothing is worse than a mealy peach! From what I have been able to read, some varieties are more prone to this than others. From my own experience, I can definitely say that the longer a peach stays on a tree, the higher the odds are that it will get mealy.
I like to harvest my peaches soft ripe, right off the tree, for fresh eating. Most of the time, if I let them go too long, they get soft and drop by themselves but some fruits never soften up and hang on the tree far longer than they should. Frequently the result is a mealy peach.
I have noticed that a well watered tree hangs on to it’s fruit longer and runs a higher risk of developing mealy fruit. I try not give too much water especially as fruit gets ripe.
Also, my earlier, heat of the summer ripening varieties rarely seem to get mealy. The later, closer to fall varieties that ripen when the days are shorter and cooler tend to have higher rates of mealiness. I pick those varieties earlier and let them soften up on the counter. It seems to help.
If there is a micronutrient that helps with this problem, I would love to know about it.
I live on PEI, so this might not apply. Peaches ripen in Sept here.
They can be allowed to ripen till they fall and don’t get mealy.
We do give all trees a bucket or two of manure each spring, and sometimes water in some boron.
Whether our location, the varieties possible here, or something we do actually having an effect, I’ve never seen a mealy peach.
Some modern varieties of peaches and nects were deliberately bred to ripen hard, that is reach their highest brix level while still firm so fruit could be handled and shipped more efficiently while still having good flavor. White Lady peach and I think Carene nectarine are examples of this. Pluots are plums that often are similar.
Peaches like this are best picked while still quite firm and ripen well at room temp. Even pluots often seem to lose their best flavor when fully softened on the tree.
Any variety of stonefruit that is good crisp falls into this category.
I’m wondering if lack of enough heat might cause mealy peaches. I have no evidence but with the heat I have mealy peaches/nectarines isn’t an issue. And I let mine get really soft. They dry really well at the soft jelly stage.
I was going to mention the same things as Alan did. I see this happening with most store bought peaches. They are very mealy and taste horrible. They look great but taste horrible and actually are not really worth trying to eat. I have stopped buying them no matter when in the year they are available at the grocery stores.
I am interested in hearing more about the causes of peach mealiness.
Two of my mature peach trees are late peaches. They ripen in mid to late Sept. I let them hang until they dropped. Never have mealy issue. When it rained a lot last summer my peaches suffered taste-wise, big, juicy, diluted taste but I would not call them mealy.
Hopefully, others who grow lot of peaches for many years like @Olpea and @scottfsmith could share their experiences.
Same thing here- I may produce bland peaches on a very bad year, but never mealy and that includes my very late ripening ones that ripen when temps are cool- I’m talking Oct.
Contrary to FN, I always figured the actual mealy peaches were the result of the peach industry moving further inland in CA where the temps routinely get into the 100’s. CA peaches start off fine but once the weather brings the hot stuff peaches get mealy. I read one commercial peach grower saying the same- that peaches get cooked on the trees when it gets too hot.
Maybe it only happens with crap CA peaches that have been over irrigated, creating huge cells with thin walls.
Interesting, I always thought that mealiness started with varietal potential and then add the right scenario(s) and you there you have it. Not based on my own growing, I have never had the displeasure of growing a mealy peach. I have two neighbors that have put out some mealy peaches though, and they were both just planted as seeds from store bought peaches.
For me it has been variety based, some are prone to it some not. I had one variety highly prone, Sanguine Tardeva, but after the tree matured and I thinned it better I had little problems with mealiness. So it does seem to have something to do with the balance of the tree, it could be nutrients or it could be something else.
I wish I could give more definitive advice on this, but my experience is fairly ambiguous.
First, I’d mention there is store bought mealiness, then there is mealiness when picked in the orchard, which generally isn’t near as bad as mealy grocer peaches.
Second, I’d also agree picking a little earlier alleviates this problem considerably.
As mentioned, I see some varietal differences to susc. to mealiness.
Lastly, for me it generally occurs with midseason peaches when it’s really hot. But this isn’t always the case. I had a few early peaches this year which had some mealiness. Not very many, but a few. I think that had something to do with the extreme rainfall we had.
A lot of people think a peach has to soften on the tree to be really great, but most of the time a peach a day or two from soft-ripe is just as good (sometimes better) than one dead ripe off the tree.
Ideally, we like to pick a lot of peaches which we call “spongy ripe”. It’s a peach which when you put some pressure on it, the flesh won’t completely give like a soft ripe peach, but you can tell it want’s to give a little, but the flesh sort of bounces back after a little bit of thumb or finger pressure near the stem end. These aren’t baseball hard, but very very slightly spongy. A peach like that will fully soften after about a day on the counter.
This is a great thread. I really appreciate all of the input from so many knowledgeable people. Hopefully more will chime in with their experiences, observations, and research. It would be really nice to understand this phenomenon a little better.
Thanks for so many helpful replies. I still have no idea whether micronutrient deficiencies contribute to peach mealiness, but I feel pretty sure that cultivar, picking too late, inadequate thinning, excess water, and too little heat are all contributing to my problems. I can do more thinning and get rid of the worst varieties but my climate is what it is. I’ll supplement boron this year and see if it seems to make any difference.
It’s interesting that some of you mentioned that early ripening varieties are less prone to mealiness than later ones. My earliest varieties (May and June) are the worst for mealiness and lack of sugars. My later varieties are best (July and August). But I get very little heat over that entire period, seldom seeing daily highs in the 80’s until fall (Sept and Oct), when my peaches are already done. The July and August ripening ones get more heat than the May and June ripening ones. I never get the really high temperatures that some of you mentioned contributing to mealiness.
I believe it mostly depends on the variety. I have not bought a store peach in a while, but I did have some mealy peaches from local U-Pick orchards. I didn’t remember a mealy peach from my trees, and it’s pretty hot here.
We don’t get heat here, like folks south of PEI. It can be 15 at noon and 8 at sunrise, degrees C, when the peaches are sizing up and ripening. If it was cold that makes mealy peaches, we’re cold, grin. Manure has trace elements, so does the seaweed we sometimes apply.
That sounds to me like lack of heat is a factor. Can you find some later varieties that would ripen during your hottest weather? We’ve talked about a high tunnel before. That’s still the best answer. But even that only helps if the sun is shinning.
I think your peaches simply aren’t developing fully due to lack of heat.
Charlottetown is on the south side of PEI, but it’s close, in climate.
Plus 30 degrees C is about as hot as it gets in summer. Minus 10 to minus 20 in winter, depending on wind direction. Today it’s 22 degrees, C.
You certainly aren’t warm in summer. Maybe upper 70s for a high and 60 for a low. But believe it or not that’s warmer than Ventura CA which averages 73/60 all four months July thru Oct. In Ventura a lot will depend on microclimate and how close one is to the ocean. Low 70s, low 20sC, for highs just isn’t warm enough to get sweet fruit on any heat loving plant like peaches. Highs in the 80s, even low 80s, would be a lot better. My greenhouse averages 90/60 for April thru Oct, 7 months of heat without ever going over mid 90s. I haven’t seen above 92, 34C, so far this summer in my greenhouse for anything more than a brief power outage.
This doesn’t prove anything about the cause for mealiness in peaches. But it does indicate why peaches aren’t a good crop in Ventura. When the sun is out there a high tunnel could be easily set up to provide many hours of 80s and 90s.
We get very sweet peaches, but have to really choose the varieties. Any with Father Davids Peach in their background do better. It may be they don’t need as much heat.
Contender was a bust here, Reliance not bad, Harrow Fair yummy, Harrow Beauty and some seedlings, also yummy. Red haven can be good, depends on the year.