How are your nectarines coming in this year? I was not seriously growing nectarines until a few years ago so I have been getting some new ones ripening recently, and some of the relatively older ones are finally producing well.
I finally got my first Arctic Glo this year, that is a very impressive nectarine! It didn’t seem to fare too badly with bugs and the like. I also got my first Freckle Face and that one is also very impressive! It is a yellow nectarine but is a bit less sour and more rich than your standard yellow (many of the yellow nectarines are incredibly similar, the gene pool appears to be very narrow there). The only downside is it is a cling. Also the birds and bugs seem to have figured out how sweet it is and I had to pick them early. The fruits are more firm than the usual nectarine. Next came my Summer Beaut. This guy is a completely standard yellow, a little bit less interesting than the better ones. I am now getting Flavortop, it is an excellent classic yellow nectarine. I measured the brix on one and it was 20 which is pretty high for my climate. The only one that didn’t fruit this year was Sunglo, the original tree died and the replacement is not quite ready to start fruiting. It was similar to Flavortop back when it was fruiting - another excellent yellow nectarine.
Overall I am happy I got into the nectarine business. They are still a bit harder to grow than peaches in terms of the damage. Curculio, moths, and stink bugs all prefer nectarines to peaches. But the flavor is worth it.
Here are a couple Flavortop. I didn’t thin super well so they are on the small side but still very tasty.
Do you have a pic of cut up Arctic Glo? Mine had quite red streak in them. Can’t recall this much redness. Just want to make sure I have the right variety. I also picked them too late, too soft and almost bitter taste.
I didn’t take a picture; @Drew51 posted some pictures here somewhere, I recall a lot of red in some of those and mine also had a fair amount of red. I didn’t notice any bitterness at all in mine.
The higher the brix and lower the acid the harder the fruit is to protect from a variety of species, from mammals to birds to insects. They all have the taste buds of children, I swear.
I have posted photos. I’m not home and don’t have access to all my photos. I also suck at searching using my iPhone.
I found flesh color can vary although Arctic Glo always was very red compared to Indian Free. I grew up on yellow nectarines but now find the whites more interesting. I have read reports that better whites than Arctic Jay are out there but I only tried Arctic Jay. Which I thought was fantastic. A touch of tartness with a rush of sugar. And man it is so pretty too. Beautiful looking fruit.
Spice Zee Nectaplum is very good too. A low acid white. The tree took til the third crop to fully develop flavor so give it time. Fist size fruits that will put to shame your other nectarines. A gorgeous tree that has ornamental value.
There are three fruit,for the first time,on a young Honey Kist.They are bagged,but ants and a few earwigs were eating them up.I pulled one fruit off,it was so decimated,(was lax on using Tanglefoot and they took advantage).The part that was salvageable,tasted excellent.
I like both Silver Gem and Jade more than Artic Glo- Jade gets size too. However, I like my yellow nects at least as much and certainly wouldn’t call the whites more complex. It is all a matter of how much acid is going with that sugar and visa-versa- at least to my taste buds. If a low acid one has at least 5 points brix more sugar I like them as much as the one with acid. Certainly Honey Blaze and Honey Royale will get you that much higher brix, but good luck getting a good crop from them. Carene is the only lower acid very high brix nect that I’ve gotten good crops from here- so far. It is very early making it fantastic in its season. I don’t know why it has failed to become popular- maybe the small size. I can only speak for how it performs here.
Here we get the best peaches and nects on drought years and we are having drought, but the March deep freeze knocked out my nects. Boo fricken Hoo.
Incidentally, last year the few Avalon nects I harvested were great.
My existing fruit trees had their flowers frozen off this year. Stonefruit are more sensitive in my area to frost than apples or pears but are worth it if you can grow it. The trees I put in and the trees I had in previous years are all doing amazing growth wise this year though. My spice zee nectaplum started out as a stick this year and now it one of my most branched out trees so far and have grown a few feet in a year.
WOW Flavortop is my favorite. GOLD coast farms along the lake here in W MI,
Used to grow it until they switched to peaches. We would get #2 1/2 bushel boxes of these for $12, sort them, can the damaged and imperfect ones for canning, jam, and fresh frozen. The near perfect ones with a better shelf life we would fridge and pull out as needed. OMG process with skin and all.
Oh! This is a great conversation. Thanks for all the descriptions of the fruit.
I am a huge nectarine fan. I think they have sooooo much more flavor than peaches. I have a Harko and a Mericrest tree . . . both very good producers. Wonderful fruit. This year I added Flavortop, Fantasia and a couple of other grafts. Some took. Some did not.
My husband never realized how good a nectarine could be - and so thought he preferred peaches . . . but now he is a convert!
The first year we got a decent amount of fruit was last summer. The trees produced very quickly - as we only planted them in 2018. The fruit ripened a few weeks after our Redhaven peaches - first Mericrest - than Harko . . . so we were not overwhelmed. But, this year . . .
everything ripened at once! I don’t get it!
Glad to hear others’ nectarine reports! Your fruit looks beautiful, Scott! Bon Apetit!
Well . . . that sounds about right, here too. We had too much rain and I watered too much, as well . . . and it ‘diluted’ the flavor in my nects and peaches . . . washed it right out! Compared to last year - they just weren’t as wonderful.
So - you have confirmed my guess, as to what happened. thanks.
Snow Queen, Arctic Jay, Emeraude and Zephyr are free stone.
Arctic Star, Arctic Glo, Arctic Sweet and I believe Silvergem are Cling Stone.
All the above are white nectarines. Like you, I prefer free stone, but the cling stones above are excellent, that I don’t really care about their stone habit. I grow all of them (except Emeraude, which I had in my old property).
I am very excited to hear of all the enthusiasm for nectarines being grown in, what I would consider, marginal nectarine areas. Many of the varieties that you are sharing I have had the privilege of being asked to promote or introduce them. I am particularly impressed by the more acidic varieties you are working with many are my personal favorites. Some of you are working with the new varieties coming out of Tomorrows Harvest Nursery or Burchell nursery, for instance Freckle Face Nectarine, an introduction from the early 2000’s. I am currently testing many of these new rich flavored perfectly acid balanced selections; I am steering away from the Sub-acids that I worked with for so many years and am really looking for the more of the rich flavored Fred Anderson types of which many were pass on in the last 30 years. This was a great thread!
So for those who like the sub acid nectarines, which are the best ones that Burchell offers?
By the way, I just noticed that some Burchell varieties are for sale at Peaceful Valley, definitely a good move that will help make those varieties accessible to a much wider customer base.
They tasted very good with mostly sweet with a little tartness to make it more interesting. Brix was 18-19 which was very good for me. Fruit size is small this year due to a drought.
