Good day all. My white lady peach tree has 8 peaches on it and they have gradually increased in size. I don’t know how to measure their progress though. Does anyone have/use a growth chart to gauge their development throughout a season.
Thank you,
Rob
I’ve not seen growth charts for individual peach cultivars. If there are any out there, I’d have to think they would be based on a degree day model.
Typically all peaches go through the same growth phases. Some progress faster than others.
First shuck split, then pit hardening, then there is a time after pit hardening (slightly smaller than golf ball size) where the peaches just sit there. They don’t do anything. Then there is the fruit swell stage, where they really start growing. Finally they color up and are soon ready to pick after that.
The slow period between pit hardening and fruit swell takes longer for later maturing varieties (sometimes a couple months). For very early varieties they progress fairly rapidly from pit hardening to fruit swell.
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Thank you Olpea, I was getting fairly nervous about the size development. Based on my zone, I did not know what to look for and to make sure they show proper progress. The tree is in great health, so I would expect to see some size increase soon.
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I took these pics today, showing the size of the tree and one showing the diameter of the peaches growing.
Is 1 1/4” diameter by this stage of the game considered normal?
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That is big if anything, mine are mostly smaller than that.
There is a period when the growth stalls as the seed hardens, then the growth picks up again.
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Thanks Scott, that info certainly helps ease my concerns. I guess the source of my anxiety over this stems from the online nurseries(I didn’t purchase online, just use their harvest dates as a reference) stating that the White Lady harvests from July 5 - July 20. My mind did not process how the stalled growth could recover in that time frame. Thank you for shedding some light on this. Looking forward to an interesting next couple of weeks.
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I’ve grown White Lady before. I have a harvest date of +4 days Redhaven. In previous discussions with Scott, we determined we are pretty close on harvest times (i.e. MD and MO/KS). I would think NJ would be close to Baltimore MD on ripening times.
Redhaven ripens here generally about the third week in July. White Lady is another 1/2 week after that. So there is still plenty of time.
Sometimes those published ripening times are based on commercial wholesale picking, which can be a week earlier than they are truly ripe.
As Scott mentioned, your peaches look completely normal at this stage. The fruit swell doesn’t start till last 4 weeks before harvest.
Just one other tip. When we get twins pictured in your photo (peaches coming out of or close to the same node) we thin off one of the fruit. Fruit coming out of the same node, or very close, don’t size well. They aren’t typically as sweet either. They seem to divide the nourishment from the leaves (carbohydrates).
I recognize you probably want to keep every peach you can, but just saying something for future help.
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Definitely bigger than my peaches. I have 9 Contender peaches that im equally concern about :). How old is your tree? Planted this year?
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Thanks, I read about thinning on other threads. I didn’t realize it was necessary on a tree with only 8 peaches. Is it too late for me to achieve quality results by leaving both of the twins on?
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Hi Susu, this is actually my fourth year with this tree. First year I planted it late in the season. Second year, bugs wrecked the peaches I had, way before they became anything of note(that’s why I use the gift bags around the peaches I have now). In between second and third I read a book about keeping small fruit trees, so during dormancy, I lopped off the main leader and severely decreased the size of the tree and lowered the crotch significantly. This made the third season a complete wash. With some help from the pruning shears and an increase in fruit tree growing knowledge (mostly coming from this forum), I am in season 4 with a white lady peach tree that is progressing nicely. How old is your contender?
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When peachlets start out, they get most of their energy from the stored reserves in the wood. As the peaches mature, more and more of their energy comes from the photosynthesis of the leaves. However, as the photosynthesis occurs, the peaches don’t draw the carbohydrates from all over the tree. They draw the energy locally as they approach the fruit swell stage.
So, we can have years where there are very few peaches on some trees. But invariably we still have to thin some peaches on those trees, because of clusters of peaches and doubles, if we want them to size well and have max sugar (Carbohydrates turn to sugar in the peach, as they ripen.)
I’m not saying your twins won’t be sweet (sugar content is largely variety driven, location on the tree, amount of sunlight, and amount of rainfall). However, there is a very good chance if you left one peach on that shoot, it will be sweeter than if you left both. Certainly on the one peach would be bigger than leaving two.
However, if this were my first eight peaches from my first peach tree, I would probably keep both peaches. If they are near the top, the difference in sugar content may not be enough for you to detect.
People new to eating tree ripe peaches can’t seem to detect differences in peach sweetness (unless it’s a side by side comparison). I don’t say this in some haughty way, just something I’ve observed with my customers. Most customers new to eating tree ripe peaches think every peach they eat is the best peach they’ve ever had. I think it’s because of all the juice, texture and peach flavor. It’s not until customers have bought several orders of peaches can we really discuss the differences between peaches. I remember the first peaches I ever grew, they all seemed to taste fantastic.
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Thank you Olpea, I appreciate the education. Your anecdote sounds like an experience I have been looking forward to for quite some time now. Hopefully this year is the year.
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You mentioned the fruit receives nutrients locally. When doing my upcoming summer pruning, do you know what a safe amount of branch to leave above a peach so it receives the proper amount of nutrients to continue along its proper development?
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That’s a great question. We are forced to do some summer pruning because the foliage just gets so thick, even after spring pruning. On vigorous mature trees, the foliage can get so thick, it shades out the peaches and the growth underneath. It’s a real problem.
However, university people have done studies showing summer pruning peaches can reduce fruit size and brix.
I think with indiscriminate summer pruning this would be true. However, when we go through, we try to mostly remove new green upright shoots which don’t appear to be feeding any peaches. Sometimes there are some upright shoots which are in position to feed peaches, but we remove some of those anyway, if it looks like there are plenty of other shoots/leaves feeding the peach in question.
We don’t spend a lot of time evaluating, just mostly look for shoots arising out of branches or scaffolds in which the shoots clearly aren’t supporting any fruits.
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How about new trees with no peaches. Do you let the upright shoots and unwanted scaffolds go to help in root growth and then prune in early spring dormancy or do you get rid of them in summer so they aren’t using energy towards this unwanted growth.
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I’ve done it both ways. The fastest way to get production is to choose some of the smallest sized scaffolds very early. Then remove everything else and let those scaffolds develop.
Another way is to just let the tree go for a year. The inner foliage will naturally force outward growth of the lower foliage.
Mostly I prefer to wait till I can get some small diameter scaffolds. Once I select those, I just cut everything else off. Then I continually prune the remaining scaffolds to direct them to an outward growth pattern. This mostly involves pruning just about all vertical growth.
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Ok everyone, here is the one remaining peach from my tree. The first grown from my own hand. I picked it two days ago, as the area near the stem softened up, and the rest of the peach remained firm however slightly indebted when squeezed.
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And yes, I found it extremely enjoyable. The wife did as well, one daughter liked it, the other isn’t a fan of peaches, so her experience differed greatly from ours.
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I ate a starking delicious peach today and it was amazing! Only one of three peaches on the tree. I wish I had 50 more. Haha. Really good peach though.
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