Yes, I know this is a thread on nectarines and not peaches, but this peach is a good point of reference when comparing to nectarines
Silver Logan white peach
Overtime I have transitioned to liking the flavour of nectarines over peaches, but this is the only white peach I enjoy.
I’ve struggled with growing Peregrine and George the IV white peaches
I found Silver Logan to be quite delicate after a few days of being harvested, but it’s overall flavour is delicious
It does not compare to the best white nectarines, yet I enjoy that it’s a free stone with lots of juice and soft flesh
Ruby Diamond yellow nectarine
This year has a better flavour than its parent Red Diamond, which it comes out a week later and Red Diamond.
I think I like it flavour better than Diamond Ray Yellow nectarine
I don’t know if it is the brix or the smooth skin but Nectarines here are harder to protect from rot and insects. I’m still trying to figure out if thrips are a new pest in my orchard that essentially wiped out only my nectarine crop. I can’t see them with a mag glass and my cooperative agent horticulturist did no better with a microscope. My consultant from my chemical supplier claims he has identified them near me when people working through Cornell failed, but he’s a bit hubristic and told me 25 years ago that my low spray program would foster rapid resistance to the chemicals I use, which never happened. He consults for commercial orchards where resistance issues are probably much, much higher.
If that was true, I don’t believe there’d have been a stone fruit industry on the east coast when I started my business 30 years ago and almost for 50 years before that when it was introduced to commercial growers by Chevron. The problem with Captan is that it is a protectant so it has to be on the tree before it rains and reapplied as soon as it clears. Commercial growers often apply it every 2 weeks throughout the growing season, tightening it up after heavy rain. Still it was a huge improvement over sulfur, which can also control brown rot, but with even more apps.
Snow Queen and a couple of White Diamond (the bright red ones). The former has excellent flavor, but high acid; if I eat two, I feel too much acid in my stomach. The latter is low acid, very good to excellent flavor, but could be better, as the past few weeks we had a lot of rain and the fruit are somewhat watered down.
I have used Captan plus myclobutanil with proper acidified water for 4 sprays for two years in a row on peaches, nectarines and plums. It was not effective. I believe @cityman did something similar and had the same results.
For those whose Captan works for them, good for them. It is a lot cheaper than the fungicide I am using now.
Honey Kist, very good, despite the rains. Was fantastic last year. I had to pick them all firm ripe, to beat the birds and brown rot. The tree is too big to net.
I lost 90% of my Honey Blaze to brown rot. I am loosing a lot of Diamond Ray and Freckle Face to brown rot too, even though they are still golf ball size.
Captan has gotten pretty pricy. I think Olpea recently said Indar is cheaper per application. Captan is packaged in small enough quantities that you aren’t buying a lifetime supply of it but it costs me more money than Indar in the volume I use both of them.
I believe Indar has fallen out of favor with commercial growers in the most productive areas for stone fruit because SI’s don’t take long in that environment for fungal diseases to pick the lock. Captan is a more complicated lock, so to speak, and brown rot has yet to develop resistance to it. That is why I usually tank mix it with Indar, but not at half strength like Olpea. I aways use as concentrated a mix as the law allows- I have much higher profit margins than small farmers who sell fruit for money.
Once a fungicide starts to become less affective for commercial growers the price tends to go down.
I wanted members to know how commercial growers make Captan work instead of leaving it at a claim that it doesn’t. SIs are systemic and have kick-back so are much more forgiving than preventives that have to be at active strength throuhout the ripening season. It’s not just about how many apps, but often whether it is promptly re-applied after heavy rain.
Captan has been kind of weak for me on Brown Rot Blossom Blight,concerning Bush Cherries,Apricots and Plums.
My Peaches/Nectarines don’t get that,but for the first time,this year,some Honey Kist fruit have Rot.
My snacktime yellow nectarine tree also struggled with brown rot, peach leaf curl. I had a large harvest & their overall flavour was better than last year‘s. Although I had lot of oriental Fruit moth damage on my leaves, even though I used a lot of lures, I did not have a single wormy nectarine.
Yellow nectarine Diamond series taste comparisons:
Ruby Diamond had the best overall flavour, mixed in with a great balance of acid and sugar, as you can tell on the photo plenty of sugar spots…& it’s freestone.
Diamond Ray was fantastic, yet bested by Ruby Diamond. Not all the Diamond Ray had the same consistent flavour. Some were so good they equaled Ruby Diamond. But I found this year‘s crop of Ruby Diamond to be consistently having the same excellent flavour. More acid & less sugar in this year’s crop was noticed compare to Ruby Diamond.
Red Diamond looked and tasted great this year, consistent with what I had last year. It’s just that Diamond Ray and Ruby Diamond were improvements over their parent Red Diamond (and ripen about a week later)…& you can taste it. I loved all 3 varieties this year, yet I’m better developing my taste buds to really differentiate the difference between the 3.
The plant patents on Ruby Diamond and Diamond Ray, have expired.
I found Sean’s Poem yellow nectarine to be better tasting than all 3 of the above diamonds, yet prone to melting, bruising more easily & having a shorter life-taste span once harvested.
1st pic is Diamond Ray
2nd pic has Diamond Ray on the left, Sean’s Poem (yellow) in the middle & Ruby Diamond on the right
3rd pic same order as 2nd pic with the larger Silver Logan white peach in the middle back for size comparison
Stark Saturn, very good and enjoyable, despite awful weather! One of few peaches I have, vs 20+ nectarine varieties. Faired much better with Brown Rot than most of my nectarines (all my peaches did).
You seem to be ~10-14 days later than me in fruit ripening. I picked all my Saturn in two days, slightly firm. If not for the rot and the rain, I would have picked them gradually over ~10 days.
I didn’t measure brix, but my best guess is 17-18. Not bad given all the rain. I thinned very well, and the fruits are big.
