Peach Tree Bud Swell/Pink/Bloom - late varieties

Sweet. Thanks for the information, Drew.

Dax

Indian Cling is a late bloomer and blooms for a long period of time. Yumm Yumm nectarine blooms a few days before my early bloomers like Saturn and Flat Wonderful. Nonetheless, it never failed to produce a crop for me. According to my records, I harvested Autumnprince on Sebtemer 16th last year. These are my 2017 unedited comments about Autumnprince ā€œA: very delicious with lots of acid in a good way; on the same leage as Redhaven and Lorings; Maybe couldā€™ve left few more days for more sugar but it was excellent.ā€ The tree was planted in 2014 and it produced few fruits in 2016. It got some PLC last year but later recovered after the wet season ended.

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Redskin is not half Redhaven, imo. Hereā€™s a post where I discussed it a bit about a month ago.

I keep forgetting that! Iā€™m getting old! It should work, as you reported in your area.

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If you are like me Drew, Iā€™m at the age I have to forget something before I can remember something new. Sort of like a storage drive thatā€™s too full.:smile:

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Olpea, this is a real ā€˜newbieā€™ grafter question . . . . But, what determines which variety blooms first on a multi-grafted tree? The variety of the scion . . . or the rootstock?

Hi Pom,

I donā€™t have experience with multigrafted trees, so I canā€™t speak specifically to your question from experience. But I do know that some peach rootstocks have a vary minor influence on bloom. However, itā€™s mostly the variety which determines when it blooms (assuming we are not factoring in weather, of course).

Iā€™ve grown peaches of a given variety on a lot of different rootstocks, and havenā€™t noticed any difference in bloom dates for a given variety The variety is what mostly makes the difference, unless you have some very non-traditional/unusual rootstock.

I walked through the peach orchard just yesterday and wrote down the fruit bud development and how many fruit buds were alive (after two separate occasions of -9F temperatures this past winter) because Iā€™ve sort of had to do my own research for my area to determine which varieties crop well in marginal years (i.e. most years). I wanted to get this done yesterday because we are supposed to get down in the teens tomorrow morning, which could remove a lot of fruit buds in various stages of development. So I wanted to collect some information before that happened.

The short of it is there are peach trees in anywhere from full pink to green calyx. Generally there is about a weekā€™s spread between various peach cultivars, with quite a bit more spread from the first to the last bloom (sometimes threes weeks or more). So it can make a significant difference in terms of cropping potential in marginal climates like mine.

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I am SO looking forward to seeing all the trees I am planting this year - in bloom next spring! Thanks for answering my question.

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About running out of memory . . . Same here. I always say, ā€œI could use a new chipā€.

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Mark,

Have you tried Rio Oso Gem or Late Crawford? Perhaps they could supplant Oā€™Henry in its window.

Matt,

I havenā€™t tried either one of those peaches. Rio Oso Gem is supposed to be one of the more bacterial spot sensitive peaches. Those kind of peaches donā€™t work for me.

Iā€™d forgotten about Late Crawford. @scottfsmith didnā€™t you grow it at some point? Anyone else growing it and can say anything about it?

I grew Early Crawford and it was exceptionally small. I think Scott hypothesized the Early Crawford going around is not actually Early Crawford, but a seedling of Early Crawford, because it didnā€™t fit the description of some of the old peach references.

Mark,

@scottfsmith was growing both Late Crawford and Rio Oso Gem, but not any longer. He told me what happened to his trees, but I forget what he said.

Maybe Scott can illuminate.

I believe he wants to try Rio Oso againā€¦

Matt, Rio Oso Gem has some latent virus in it so it is never very vigorous. I think that makes it more susceptible to bacterial spot and decline as well. My tree got borers and didnā€™t quite pull out so its gone. Late Crawford also declined but I re-grafted it last year and it should fruit again this year. Along with borers most of my peach stocks are around 15 years and peaches live 15-20 years on average in my climate or so I have heard.

In terms of flavor etc I find them both excellent. Late Crawford took several years to be good, it was slow to get going. I never got too many Rio Oso Gem first due to bacterial spot and then due to decline. One of these years I will re-add it thoughā€¦

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Mark,

ACN recommends Laurol, Victoria, and Autumnstar to cover that window.

Laurol makes decent-looking peaches around here, but the taste is bleh.

I know nothing about the other two.

Tiana, Selena, and Summerfest might also hang pretty late to cover part of that window.

They say Tiana is a new one from Rutgers with ā€œexcellent flavor.ā€

Selena also said to have excellent flavor AND bact spot resistance.

https://www.acnursery.com/fruit-trees/peach-trees/yellow-fleshed

https://www.acnursery.com/fruit-trees/peach-trees/436/tiana

I just put in the 35-007 last year. I took a gamble as to see if that late variety would actually be a good peach. Iā€™m on a 5B area as you are so it gives me a little hope that I picked one that would work and taste good here. Iā€™ve got Contender and Redhaven that had been good in my orchard. I wanted a later ripening variety after those two were done. The Redhaven and Contender keep me busy processing them fast enough to keep the fruit from being ruined. A month or so break was what I was looking for YET having it be a very good tasting peach. The FF variety looked like it would fit that ripening slot but I was unsure of how it actually tasted.

I like the taste of PF35-007. It ripens +40 here. Contender ripens +21 here.

Matt, all three of those peaches ripen after Encore/Oā€™Henry here. Encore/Oā€™Henry is +33 here. Laurol is +38, Autumnstar +43, Victoria +45.

Laurol is a very good tasting peach here, except that it is fairly susc. to bac. spot, but not so bad as to make the fruit unmarketable.

One thing which may be affecting the flavor of Laurol there is that it is an extremely productive peach and will size peaches even under heavy load. If the tree is over-cropped, which is easy to do, I suspect this would be a significant drag on flavor.

Scott, Once Late Crawford got going, how was the productivity? Size? Also, I know you donā€™t grow Redhaven, but in terms of ripening time, can you give a reference of Late Crawford to some other well known peach?

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Its a bit on the small side and was never very productive for me. It is known to be unproductive. Its around Sweet Bagel / Indian Cling / Oldmixon Free / Rio Oso Gem periodā€¦ late but not super late is what I think of that period as.

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So just as wrap up. I have a contender tree that still has a few blooms on it. The contender looks sickly - 1/3 tree did not get leaves on it until very late - looks like I may lose some limbs. The rest of the tree had a greatly reduced set rate for the peaches. I may cut the contender way back this year. The Indian Cling Blood Peach is definitely the winner for late blooming (Excluding the odd behavior of the Contender). Slightly off topic but my Elberta was by far the winner for setting fruit. Reliance was second (surprise - Reliance has never set fruit well for me). Red Haven and Tangos 2 were next (small trees but for the size they set well). Elegant Lady and Hale Haven set small amounts. First year Hale Haven set fruit, was going to cut it down this year. The rest of my trees are set one to four fruit but all were smaller trees. Contender was the surprise disappointment,

I donā€™t know how, or if it fits here Spud, but here are some notes/observations from my peach records this ā€œSpringā€

4/23/18 Peaches Waking up observations: From least to most green ā€“
Indian Free: Almost need a magnifying glass to see any sign of wake up but itā€™s not deadā€¦
Redhaven: Not much going on you have to look close to see a teeny tiny leaf push.
PF17: Slightly ahead of RH, but not a lot.
Reliance: Maybe 1/32 green tip very similar stage to PF17
PF24C: Most of the tree is pushing GL but less than 1/32
Contender: About Ā½ the tree showing 1/16, the other Ā½ not even that
Madison: Whole tree is pushing a lot of leaves maybe 1/32
Intrepid: A lot of GL push at pbly 1/16

5/01/18 Peach variety progress report:
Redhaven: Looks to have a few dead branches/limbs.
(RH is pushing some leaf but no flower buds yet)
Intrepid: Spotted 5 swollen flower buds
PF17: Spotted 6 flower buds with 2 fully open
Indian Free: 3 bud swells showing a little pink
Reliance: 4 swelling, a couple showing pink but not fully open yet
Contender: I canā€™t spot any flower buds, just pushing leaf good, over an inch
Madison: 12 or so tight pink buds, but the leaves are scarce. Buds not on limbs but branch?
PF24C: 6 or so tight pink all midway along branches

So the next few days after this rain is done ought to tell me a lot. As it looks now, I fear my RH may not have fared too well.

I think itā€™s going to be a real cold hardy test though, as I recorded a wintertime low temp of -21 here.

Last year we got to -13 and RH & Madison each had bumper crops for their ages.

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Wow, your spring is so far behind mine - Central Virginia. I donā€™t have anything close to the extreme of your cold temps. My problem is that is will be 70 F one day and 25 F the next day. My trees bloomed well this year but frost decimated the blooms. We are growing the same trees except for PF17, but many of my trees are small, not mature, Would love to hear how your fruit sets. I am in the ever elusive search of frost resistant trees :slight_smile: .