The French one you are talking about is Emeraude, I have it and it is excellent! My second leaf Silvergem is shaded by a larger tree, so I let it grow this year with no fruit so that it catches up with its larger neighbor.
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Picked all my Arctic Jay crop today, some soft ripe and some firm ripe. Ate two, great refreshing flavor, one was 19 and the other 21 brix, canāt complain after all the rain of last week. My tree is in its 5th leaf, so has reached itās prime; unfortunately it is only half a tree because of high density planting.
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@Ahmad - Nice!! My Arctic Jay from a last yearās graft (that I forgot I have). So far they are in bags. I canāt see them but can tell that they definitely are small.
@alan, which nect variety you got from ACN that they told you is the best.
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Best in EGās season. Avalon, according to Jen at ACN. Itās the only yellow they offer in that slot.
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I just hope itās not another one of these low-acid creations. That seems to be the only kind of nectarine you can buy around here now. Their fine when they are sweet enough but I still prefer some tang.
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I feel your pain. I have 6 plum trees. 2 peach. 2 nectarine.
N o t a s i n g l e p i e c e o f f r u i t .
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I have to pay tribute to Arctic Jay! For the past few days I have been eating it from my tree; what a wonderful flavor it does haveā¦ In another thread I mentioned that it has less flavor than Arctic Star and Zephyr, while that is probably true, Iād say itās a hair less. By all means it is an excellent piece of fruit, at the very top of what one can eatā¦ As a matter of fact, itās the all time (>20 yrs) top fruit at Dave Wilsonās taste testing.
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Acid?
To me, it is moderately acidic, not high and not ultra low like some low acid peaches.
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@Ahmad,
My Arctic Jay are at least 10 days away from fully ripe. This morning, something ate a chuck of it. So, I rescue the remaining fruit and trimmed of the damage.
I figured I could try it unripe to see how it tasted. I was impressed that it tasted mildly sweet and crunchy. I came from the land where people love eating unripe, crunchy fruit like green mangoes with dip.
This Arctic Jay was excellent for that type of snack. Honestly, I could eat the rest this way 
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If you canāt hold yourself, I suggest you eat half now and save the other half for ten days later, when they become soft ripe!
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I have Arctic Jay on Citation, in a 15 gal pot. Had a few fruit this year. The best nect I have ever had. Planning on putting this tree into ground but I know it will be stunted with Citation. Ordered Arctic Sweet on Lovell for next spring. How does it compare to AJ?
The only reason I want to eat them now is that they would not be stolen by night critters. I am using marshmellow tonight to see if itās raccoon. It could be an opossum.
Last night several plums were gone.
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Iād put a couple of traps around the tree!
Arctic Sweet is excellent too and is two weeks earlier. All my white nectarines are excellent: Arctic Star, Arctic Glo, Arctic Sweet, Emeraude, Arctic Jay and Zephyr; and for me they provide fruit from early July to mid September.
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Dry weather and and exploding squirrel pop. here seems to have amplified pest pressure from land and air. Iām having a very tough time protecting fruit for my customers, sometimes relying on both baffles and nets, which is a royal PIA. I just got a report from a couple whoād been out of town for two months that their entire crop of plums, pears, peaches, and apples had been taken. The apple trees are mature and were loaded with potentially bushels of fruit. None were close to ripe. All the trees were protected with baffles but if the squirrels defeated a single baffle they could pillage at will jumping from tree to tree.
On my own property Iāve trapped and killed probably 40 squirrels this year- two yesterday that had already destroyed a third of my Williamās Pride crop, which has been ripening for a week. I had let my guard down and am now back to keeping my traps baited. Iām keeping my coon traps baited also- Iām sure some will be wandering on to my property before the apple crop is in and one coon can destroy most of the best apples in a tree in a single night. They do know how to determine the best fruit as do squirrels. Possums tend to knock off ripe and not ripe fruit and then eat what they like from the ground. Of course squirrels also go after green fruit but when thereās ripe fruit they choose the best of it.
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@alan,
You said to use marshmellow as bait for raccoons. What do you use to bait opossums?
When I use ripe fruit, I got skunks 9 out of 10 times.
I also have so many bunnies this year. They are too light for a squirrel trap.
During drought, skunks will even go after marshmallows because the worms and insects they eat probably go down too deep in the soil to forage for. Iāve sometimes tied traps into trees to stop the skunks from entering traps, but you can construct any kind of platform that requires climbing.
Yes, possums canāt resist marshmallows either.
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Two days ago I picked my only Honey Halo fruit, it was big, sweet and have a very nice flavor. It was firm ripe with a brix of 18, but I had to pick it because ants were attacking it. Even with such a brix, I was able to taste elements of superb flavor in it; I would say it was clearly better than similar brix Honey Blaze. We had a lot of rain lately, so I am somewhat surprised the brix was not much lower, which further points to the promise of this variety! A couple of photos below:
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Did that one come from Burchell Nursery?bb
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