So far this yr Gold Dust and Winblo peaches have been 13 to 16 brix. Whereas Honey Lite and Honey Blaze nectarines are 21-31. All in my greenhouse and more or less watered the same. I really can’t believe the difference myself. I just ate a Winblo that was 15.5 and pretty sour to my taste. Then I ate a 31 brix Honey Lite. I’ll be honest the HL wasn’t at it’s best. A little too water stressed which leads to off flavors. Still it was way better than the peach.
The 20 something nectarines have been superb both fresh and dried. The flavor of these low acid nectarines to my taste is in another stratosphere compared to the acidic peaches. I won’t try drying the peaches. They’d really taste tart dried.
Steven, I absolutely love tree ripened peaches. They are, by far, my favorite fruit - but, I fear this may be out of my own ignorance. I’ve never had a peach over 20 brix that I know of. To me, a 16 brix, tree ripe peach is heavenly. I have never tried to grow nectarines. I keep reading your posts about your fruit candy and I wonder what I am missing out on. So this year, I grafted some nectarines to my peach trees, one of which is Honey Blaze. (Looks like it is failing to take, although Nectafest on the same tree is taking off). Anyways, you have inspired me to try to follow in your footsteps.
Some times I wonder why you still keep the peach trees that you have, with all the heavenly nectarines that you grow. If I were you, I’d replace these peaches with new nectarine
and apricot varieties and may be re-plant some of the better pluots that you removed.
I like some peaches as well. I’ve got Sweet Dream and Valley Sweet looking awfully big and beautiful. Usually big means less brix. These are both low acid yellow fleshed peaches that taste similar fresh and dried to the Honey series nectarines. We’ll see what kind of brix those have. I’d expect upper teens.
All excellent advice. I’ll be doing much of that this winter. I’m already removing things I don’t like after harvest.
These peaches are ones I grafted 3 yrs ago based on recommendations here. At the same time I grafted other trees over to the Honey series. This is my first big crop off those.
The pluots are good but not as good as the nectarines and they don’t dry nearly as well. What I like dried is nectarines and figs, both low acid fruits.
Here’s some pictures of my peaches and nectarines. First picture is mostly Sweet Dream with a yellow Winblo in lower right and another wrapped up for support.
Second is mostly nectarines not Honey series. Third a few Honey Diva, and Blaze. Blaze is mostly picked already.
A few years ago, I bought Sweet Dream peaches from Boyer Nursery in PA. The fruit were large and sweet/flavorful. I was very impressed by the size and the taste.
The next year, I bought them again (more this time). Unfortunately, it was the year with a very wet summer . The fruit tasted so bland.
In your green house, I am sure you could get Sweet Dream to be big and sweet. If I could control climate, I’d love to grow Sweet Dream for a peach because of the size and taste.
Are you sure you have the real gold dust? I just picked a few and one was 21 brix and the other was around 22. Very good peaches to me, rich and juicy! There may be a different variety floating around as gold dust that you have. Here is a few pics…
The low acid fruits are no good if you can’t get the brix up. Usually above 18 is good but 20s are better.
I don’t know if mine is the real deal. I’m thinking it’s easier to get high brix outdoors than in my greenhouse. That’s the case here. I can do better outdoors if it doesn’t rain too much. Outdoors has more light, lower humidity, and higher water use.
I’ve never done well with peaches in the greenhouse. The low acid white flesh peaches were a disaster. I had lots of those when I came back from CA. They all got chopped out after a few crops.
I was thinking the same thing when I read your initial post. I once tried using a large greenhouse shade cloth as an experimental cover on a peach tree for bird protection. I found the peaches ripened a bit later than normal and weren’t as sweet, so I ended up selling the cover.
That said, I’ve got no explanation why you don’t seem to see any negative brix effects from growing nectarines inside.
Yours looks like the Gold Dust I grew at one time. My one tree didn’t produce very well at all, so I removed it. How is the production on yours?
Well sounds like nectarines are better for you for sure if you are drying them, nectarines dry better than peaches and we really like dried nectarines too!
@Olpea, sorry they did not produce for you, their size is not very good so not a good commercial peach really at all. Mine produces well for me and I always thin a lot of fruit off it. For us it is the first really good freestone of the season, my wife calls them pointy buts because the pointed tips.
Size doesn’t bother me too bad, as long as it’s not really really small. Mine didn’t have quite the point on the bottom. Maybe I had a mislabel. It did ripen when it was supposed to, but the color was double red. Here is a pic I took of one I picked several years ago.
My honey blaze are ripening now and they are really good. I don’t measure brix, so I can’t post any numbers. I’m beginning to like nects just as much as peaches.
Steve, I think if you grew your peaches outside, where they
get the full benefit of the sun, you’d get much better peaches.
A greenhouse just doesn’t compare to mother nature’s sun and rain,
especially with peaches. You can water all you want, but it’s not the same as rain.
That looks like a different peach to me but who knows, were they small? The red in the flesh in your pic is different but could be conditions. Mine have red streaks on the skin but the pit looks really similar. I would be happy to send you scion this winter if you want. I would put some June Pride scion in with it and whatever else I have that you want to try over there.
My Gold Dust (grafted using material from the CRFG scion exchange) produces peaches that look identical to those on @fruitgrower photos. The peach on @Olpea photo looks different.
Thanks so much Jon for the offer. I may not have had a true Gold dust. They were all double red (i.e. no yellow background color) like in the photo. I need to find out how productive the peach is in the NE or Midwest before I try another Gold Dust. Sometimes peaches can be productive in a very favorable climate, like CA, but not be productive in my more challenging environment.
Productivity is one of my biggest issues. I’ve removed so many trees/varieties because of that. For example, O’henry is a great peach, but I can’t get enough production out of the trees to justify keeping them. I started with about a dozen of them, and plan to finally remove the last of them this year.
My latest apparent peach boondoggle is a purchase of seven PF Eight Ball in 2017. They are big enough trees they should have started producing something this year, but pretty much nothing on them. It’s a bit early to come to judgement on them, but it’s not looking good so far.
Sometimes a variety will produce well in a good year, but in a marginal year, won’t produce hardly anything. I’ve had to pull out so many trees because of this. If I see a variety which is hit and miss, right next to a variety which consistently gives full crops year after year, it makes the decision pretty easy for me (assuming the fruit tastes good, and not a bac. spot magnet).
Size isn’t a big deal for me. Unless the peach is super small, customers will buy them, as long as they taste good. Same with color. As long as the peach doesn’t show any green when soft ripe then customers don’t care. Redskin is one which can show some green even when soft ripe some years, and that makes it harder to sell. The “Gold Dust” peach (probably an imposter) I grew was small but acceptable size.
Alan has mentioned Gold Dust hasn’t been very productive for him in the NE, so I’m a little hesitant to try it again. @scottfsmith has grown Gold Dust in the NE, but I don’t recall if he has mentioned its productivity.
Mark, to me it is a normal peach as far as productivity goes, it makes more fruits than I want so I have to thin most out. It also looks nothing like your peach, there is no red in it. Of course it could all be climate conditions.
The one I grew had no red. That’s past tense for both Gold Dust and Winblo. I’m planting/grafting more nectarines. The Winblo aren’t worth eating either.
