@Olpea I have this nectaplum (nectarine) planted early in spring, is now a good time to remove vertical growth shoots and select the outward growing shoots lower on the trunk.
It doesn’t look like there is a lot of selection choices at this point. I think right now, I would simply tip the more vertical growing shoots. Take, say, 4" off those. That will keep them from growing taller, and encourage them to bush out more. It gives more time for the tree possibly sending out some adventitious buds lower down. I wouldn’t get in a hurry to select any scaffolds on that tree at this point.
We planted lots of trees which look like yours this spring. Typically, if they are growing good, they will eventually start pushing some adventitious buds. Not so much this season necessarily, but next season, if they are kept tip pruned, they will start pushing newly formed adventitious shoots up and down the bare trunk.
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I would tip or leave it alone for now. Limb removal is more for winter pruning. And you might never know if it will suffer any damages from mother nature over the winter/next early spring.
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Any tricks on timing for picking white lady? Redhaven is just starting to ripen but white lady is all red with a little green around the stem and has been for several days. No peach smell. I tasted a few firm and they still taste a little green. I was thinking you could eat them crisp but definitely needs to build up more sugar for that. I would like to pick them off the tree while still firm.
Been a while since I posted here, and this popped up in my inbox. Really glad to see people with such positive results. Keep up the good work. Sorry to report I been losing my peach battle to the wildlife in my area. The last 3 years, over 100-150 peaches per year, just gone. Pretty sure when I was successful, I was picking them in mid to late July though.
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Did you pick your white last peaches firm? And if so, how did you know when?
I believe they were tender by the stem and if gave a little push on the rest of the fruit, their would be a slight indentation
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Hi DTF,
Sorry for the late response.
My records showed white lady ripened about 4 days after Redhaven here.
If you want to pick them firm, you’ll want to make sure the background color is yellow. The peach shown in your pic, looks about like the correct background color, as far as I can tell from the pic.
We sometimes pick peaches which look like that, and tell customers to let them counter ripen. We also pick peaches soft and sell those too. Like Rob the Golfer indicated, a little give in the peach indicates it’s ready to eat.
Your peach in the photo looks pretty small. I don’t remember white lady being that small. Things which cause small peaches are either water deprivation, which can be a really good thing and increase the sugar and flavor.
Other things which cause it are too many peaches on the tree, or sod growing in the root area. These are bad things. They make the peaches smaller, and reduce the sugar and flavor.
Maybe the peach in the pic isn’t representative of most of the peaches on the tree. If thats the case, that’s normal. Most peach trees will have some un-uniformity of peach size.
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Thank you so much for the response @Olpea! I have learned a lot from all your posts on this forum and really appreciate it. I think I will try picking a few and see how they counter ripen. Being a shipping peach, I have found it hard to know when to pull the trigger. The peach pictured is as bout 2 1/2 “ in diameter just kind of a weird angle.
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I am wondering how much water deprivation is too much. Also, how much to water and when.
I read somewhere that you are supposed to give water during fruit set and last 30 days if there is <1’’ of rain in a week. Does that sound reasonable? What about the period in between?
I also saw a report from Rutgers that said it should be <1.5" week for a mature tree, but I also know they’re probably less focused on flavor and more on selling sized up peaches.
That’s a really good question. You’re right, all the advice on watering is based on selling lbs. of peaches.
I would not water the last 30 days, unless perhaps it hadn’t rained all summer.
I have found extreme water deprivation (like no water for a long time) with hot weather can cause some peaches to become bitter. But it has to be really extreme, and I’ve not noticed it with all varieties, just some.
The vast majority of the time, water deprivation just makes the peaches sweeter, though smaller.
I’ve not seen and early or mid season peaches bitter from water deprivation, only later season peaches, which have basically had no water all summer. In that case, if you have the ability, I might give some late season peaches a bit of water, if it hasn’t rained all summer.
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