I figured out a few years ago that the real pretty ones, that look like the ones in the store, are duds. The ones with the sugar spots and the rough look are heavenly
1 Like
Alan, have you been harvesting John Boy? I lost the tag on the graft, but I think it was some JB I picked a week or a bit more ago with 15-16 brix. Iām picking Loring now, which has gotten up to 14 brix.
Yes Iāve seen that but usually itās the whole crop are shiny duds or rough looking gems. The last shiny duds I can remember well was about 10 yrs ago when all my Arctic Star were big beautiful shiny and 14 brix. That was caused by an error in setting up the drip irrigation, ie too much water too often.
The good ones look like these which are actually very pretty in my view:
Or these that are not so pretty but taste great:
3 Likes
My nectaplums look like yours Steve, well sort of, about half the spots, but spots! Yeah!
These will be ripe in early September.
Beauty is in the eye of beholder, I picked this tomato today
5 Likes
Thatās the look
1 Like
Or in the eye of the taster
1 Like
My big John Boy fell over a couple months ago and that put a big hole in my peach crop given that TangOās on my 2 trees were almost nothing but rot- rot that wouldnāt even allow peaches to fully ripen. Now Earnieās Choice and another good peach are starting to ripen and the first samples have been quite good. This is why I have hope on a sweeter future in my orchard this season.
Iām glad you are getting those high brix numbers. My trees are excessively vegetative and have just too much access to water on a wet year- Iāve seen much more growth on trees loaded with crop than in all previous years growing here. Great season to be a nurseryman. My inventory has doubled in value! Glad I sell trees and not fruit- Iām getting plenty of high quality stuff for my own and wifeās consumption, but the bland stuff Iām ashamed to give away.
5 Likes
I think the John Boy was high because it is on a dying PF1 tree (most of the tree died, except a few grafts and 1 original PF1 branch) and there were only 2 peaches on the branch. The Loring are more variable, but I think being next to the driveway helps- warmer and nothing near it on 3 sides, with the 4th side just having a tiny Nectarine on citation (<4ā tall, while Loring is on Lovel and getting big). While the best has been 14, Iāve seen some in the 11 area as well. Still OK, but not great. I think they are just entering their prime, so I may see more in the 14 area.
The rot on mine was so bad that Iāve decided to virtually eliminate TangO. I put the plan into actual immediately, budding and grafting over it with Heath Cling, Tesoro (early Yellow), Carmen, and a few White Lady, along with old grafts (growing) of Elberta, Foster, and Chinese Cling. I figured that my green-green grape grafts have been working so well that I would try the same with peaches, so some of them are cleft and bark grafts.
To the right of the butchered NJF16 is the dying PF1. Even further to the right, near the edge of the picture is the happily growing/productive So jujube.
3 Likes
I would never give up on Tang0ās because of one bad year. It was one of the few trees that gave me fruit last year and usually its problems wouldnāt bother most home growers. It is in a class of its own- the most unique peach I grow. That said, I will eliminate one of my two trees- but that was the plan anyway. One is enough.
During Jonboys season I had lots of white and yellow nects to eat so it wasnāt missed all that much- but I miss my Tang0ās. Peaches coming now will be similar to Jonboy- which is just an early Loring- great peach but not unique.
1 Like
This is bad year #3 (or 4?) for me. Iāve been working to resolve the rot issue- maybe this wasnāt the best year to stamp out the rotā¦There will still be a few small TangO branches left, but not many. Hopefully few enough that I can stay on top of the little mini-peaches which stop growing and spread rot.
I just had a 16 brix Shui Mi Tao peach. It was high acid, so my wife thought it was much more sour than a 10 brix Loring which had sat on the counter for a few days and was juicy-ripe. The Shui Mi Tao probably wasnāt all the way ripe- it was still a bit crunchy, not soft and juicy like honey peach should be. Iām still happy it got that high in brix, even in a shaded, interior spot in the tree (grafted to Cavalier nectarine).
1 Like
Drew I hope thatās good but it looks a bit smooth and shiny to me. The spots are uniformly spaced over the whole fruit. Sugar spots are usually more towards the tip and the surface coloration isnāt uniform. The tip of a nectarine is the sweetest and most affected. Youāll know when you measure the brix or taste it.
Hereās a funny thing, I have a Summer Beaut nect in my nursery with a small crop. Every one on the tree has the dull yellow look we like and one from it I just measured has 19 brix! I guess I wonāt be selling the tree next year until I figure out if itās a sport or just a freaky one time occurrence. The nects on my orchard tree are also larger so it is probably environmental- less access to water, maybe.
2 Likes
Not really, the spots seem to more at the bottom. Others in the shade have no spots, or fewer of them. Here is one from the north.side. I suppose something on the south made them all be spotty at the blossom end? Not sure? Arctic Glo was at 18 and had less spots.
On the other photos where the sun hit them, they look like that. So I guess it could be cosmetic?
They will not be ready for 3 weeks. See what happens with brix at that time.
1 Like
Arctic Star were very āehā for me. Nothing special at all. Might get rid of the tree.
Your fruit are way cleaner then mine.
Nectaplum is boring too for me, it tasted better this year on one that fell. I suspect higher sugar, but I canāt do that every year, this is a very dry year here. Less humid too. We been getting 50% humidity which is extremely pleasant. Iām going to top work most of it. One scaffold is already Red Haven.
Yes it is at 14 brix. Get it into the 20s and itās a different fruit.
1 Like
20ās is abnormal for areas that have rain during the ripening season. A 14 brix nect can be delicious if thereās acid with that sugar, and 16 is sweet enough to make a nectarine as good to my palate as it gets. It is low acid fruit that needs the really high sugar to satisfy me. You southerners and your intense sweet teethe!
4 Likes
I would agree with that, itās all we get here. I may get slightly higher brix this year, but most years I do not. Iām very happy with my fruit in general, itās awesome. Nothing sold here from CA tastes better. You would have to grow it there.
So I was thinking about this Arctic Star Rob mentions (maybe that is what you got instead of glo?) So it I were to cut one up and dump some sugar on it, it would be better?
2 Likes
Ate my home grown Easternglo nect for the first time. It was good. I have nothing to compare (Arctic Glo and Star were mostly rotted, unripe).
Got 6 good ones out of 20 fruit. Several got brown rot. Friut had very short to almost no stem, hiding under branches and covered by leaves, hard to spray.
Mostly were ripe. I will not do squeeze-taste nectarines ( or peaches) to check if they were yield to touch/ripe anymore. 4 of 6 had my finger marks and bruises from my " squeezes". I donāt have light/ gentle touch I guess.
A lot of red mixed in the one that were ripe.
The ripe ones had more red in the flesh.
4 Likes
Iād rather have a ripe nect with a slight bruise than an unripe unbruised one. They tend to get bruised a bit by the stem anyway when you ripen them on the tree- at least I havenāt figured out how to pick them without it. Iām not talking about soft ripe, either- that I cannot get away with here.
1 Like