Peach split pits

[Exmil]

Hi, here’s my history with peach trees…I had a severe problem with peach leaf curl which resulted in zero fruit for about 4 years, complete defoliation, and very little new wood growth.

This dormant season, I used Ziram to treat it and now it’s under control almost completely. The trees flowered and set fruit even though there wasn’t much fruiting wood from last year.

I gave each tree about 10-15 gallons of water with high N urea 46-0-0 dissolved in it in May to stimulate new growth and they have grown more this season than all previous years combined.

I harvested a few nectarines (an Italian one called Caldesi) and 2 had open holes where the stem attaches to the fruit while others had no openings. The ones with openings had no pit and the intact ones had only the inner seed without the hard outer shell. They still taste good though.

My question is, do you think the high N treatment and papid growth caused the split pit or the fact that we had several rainstorms in the last 2 weeks? I did water the trees several times before the storms.

Thanks

[sockworth]

Here’s a thread that addresses your questions.

Split and shattered pits

The general causes of split and shattered pits are pretty well documented. Over watering, over fertilizing, over thinning, and thinning at the wrong time seem to be identified as potential causes. But it appears that some varieties are just more susceptible than others. Of all my stone fruit varieties ‘Beauty’ plum tends to get shattered pits. Mainly the tips break off, which is frustrating because I always eat stone fruit from the blossom end first, because that is generally the ripest/best par…

[Richard]

I’d say it’s a toss-up. Ocean-born rain can have significant N content.