I have a three year old Elberta peach. The peaches don’t seem as good as the ones I got from my unnamed peach tree, and to be honest, I just don’t need that many peaches. I’m hankering to get rid of the tree and replace it with a later bearing white nectarine, such as Emeraude.
My question is, should I just try and get some scion wood and not a whole new tree? Can I graft that nectarine to the peach and keep some the the Elberta branches? If I did this would I have to cut back the Elberta to equal out growth of the graft? I guess I’m confused about the scope of grafting. What would produce nectarines faster, a new tree or a graft? Would I be able to find the graft I want or is it hit or miss?
Properly done grafting would likely get you fruit a yr earlier and more of it. However there are more ifs with grafting than planting a new tree.
Yes you could keep part of the Alberta and graft on several varieties. Emeraude might be patented and will be hard to find. I grew it once and was underwhelmed by the fruit.
If you haven’t grafted peaches before its probably a wash, often theres a 0% success for a few years on them. Its much harder to graft peaches than most other fruits.
My Fantasia is ripening soon, its one of the best for taste. Flavortop just finished, it was also very good. I haven’t had either for long but both did really well, less rot etc issues than my Mericrest for example. Mericrest is just before Flavortop.
Both Flavortop and Fantaisia are excellent over here, Flavortop being our whole familys favorite nectarine. They both have beautiful blooms in spring as well. Highly recommended!
Another question is whether you like high of low acid fruit. The series that includes Honey Royale creates an entirely different eating experience than more acidic types- the few fruit my tree has managed to produce here tended to have extremely high brix- some as high as 29% sugar, which is 10% higher than I will likely ever get from any other nectarine variety I have now. The effect is it tastes like an entirely different type of fruit- like something tropical.
I think Scott may be a bit conservative about how long it takes to graft peaches successfully. I believe that forum members are often getting success on the first year by following the advisc of the more experienced here. The technique of grafting peaches is the same as for other fruit, but wrapping wood with parafilm is a must for me and you have to wait for trees to be in good growth and for a forecasted stretch of good growing weather to insure a good chance of success.
are either of these two varieties resistant to bacterial spotting or scab?
Alan, I’m not sure what I like as per the acidity. I imagine I would like a more acidic fruit, just based on my wine preferences.
My number one concern is how easy is it to grow organically. The Alberta Peach tree I have now did not respond as well as my other peach to Surround and Spinosad. The peaches have a lot of spotting and are now cracking before being ripe.
Thanks again for all the input. I have room for 5 more trees if I push it. That would give me 20 trees in the ground and four in pots.
I believe that Emeraude is not patented in the US (at least until somebody shows me a link to the patent). I have it, so if somebody wants scionwood, contact me in January.
AFAIK, Emeraude is about +9 to Redhaven, which means it’s a day or two before Mericrest. I wouldn’t call it “late”. It’s way before Elberta.
How do you like it Stan? I saw a maturity chart which put it at the first week of August. I need a 5th tree to get the free shipping from ACN, thus I picked Emeraude. Those were the factors I was considering at this point.
I’ve just planted the tree in January, so no report on the fruit yet.
The absolute ripening date is pretty meaningless, since it applies to a specific location. The date relative to a widely grown cultivar like Redhaven is more useful, since you can apply it to different locations.
Maybe, I am conservative, too. I’ve found grafting peaches/ nectarines more challenging than other common fruit trees.
@growjimgrow, do you live on the east coast? If so, growing stone fruit organically can be very challenging. You may be able to get good peaches the first couple of years. Diseases ( and bugs) often find your trees after that.
I may sound negative. I’ve experienced it myself and from reading accounts of those living on the east coast.
I mean that the process is not more difficult and doesn’t require more experience than grafting apples if you just do it at the right time. The problem is knowing what the right time is, but I think if you follow the advisc of someone with similar climate you will likely be fine.
I live in eastern PA. I guess I’m just optimistic because I had such a great peach harvest. I had all the bug problems in the past but this year I followed Scott’s organic program and it worked. I have not had the rots as far as I know. I am relatively new at this and understand how one can have a good year until the bugs or diseases find you (such as those stupid squash vine borers, which found me after three years of great squash and zucchini and now ravage my life, grrrr).
Why are the nectarines harder to protect than peaches. Are they just more susceptible to disease? I thought maybe they would be harder to keep Surround on because they don’t have the fuzz, but then I realized peaches don’t have fuzz when I was first spraying them.
The fuzz protects the skin, thats its genetic purpose. The fuzz-less version would be a failure in the wild but we humans have kept it going. Concretely, nectarines get rot and spot much worse than peaches on average.
It takes about five years for rot to get bad, so its not surprising to hear you didn’t have any of it. On average its something like three great years, one good year, one sort of bad year, and then finally you arrive at a massive rot-fest. Using regular sprays of Regalia and sulphur you will be able to bring in the more rot-resistant peaches OK. I did sort of OK on Mericrest, the only nectarine I had any success at all with in my 100% organic program. Well, John Rivers also did well. My newer nectarines I didn’t try 100% organic on. This year I have 7 nectarines fruiting and they all look awesome with the help of Indar.
I think peaches will be a better choice for the organic garden over there, there is some really good info on Scotts peach report as Fruitnut pointed out. A few outstanding peaches over here include June Pride, O Henery, Kaewah. Red Barron, and Arctic Supreme. There are many more, these are just my favorites, and may or may not do well there. I think Scott is having good success with a few of those above peaches, and he has some others that he recommends as well.
I wish they would breed a fuzzy nectarine, with all the extra sugar and acid of a nect but the protection of fuzz. Indian Free is closest of peaches I grow, but it is not sweet enough for some tastes because of all the acid.