O'Henry peach - testing for low chill?

General Fruit Growing
#1

I test cultivars by grafts to see how they do in inland southern California/San Diego. Today I saw my O’Henry peach tree graft is in bloom, synchronously. It actually seems to have more compressed bloom than my August Pride and Red Baron did, at least at first. It was totally dormant all winter while other cultivars were slowly waking up. Then after about the equinox it got sudden bud swell and then today after 3 days of 80+ degree temperature I noticed it had all bloomed at once.

I have a lot of high chill test graft failures. This really does not look like it would be a failure to me, though it is only one graft. Has anyone else tested the chill limits of O’Henry?

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#2

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Here is the O’Henry peach graft.

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#3

4 weeks later, here is the fruit set on OHenry peach. I believe some cultivars bloom late, and are falsely classified as high chill for that reason. This seems to happen more for peaches.

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#4

Love your low chill experiments. Because I get slightly higher chill than you in the same state, your successes should translate well into mine.

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#5

No problem! Glad it (probably) helps.

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