Our peach blooms are finishing, in petal fall, looking for shucks now. Seedling (ity bity), reliance, loring, red haven and contender all had a full blooms with no evidence of tip die back. Rich May blooms were sparse, but I understand that’s a characteristic rich may. Peaches started blooming 10 days later than last year.
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We are starting to hit petal fall on some peach trees. Forecasts for KC are 30F Monday morning. We generally get a bit colder at the orchard. It wouldn’t be a problem if we had lots of blooms, but we don’t.
Here’s a pic yesterday of a few Harrow Diamonds on the higher ground. They did pretty good. The row in the left background are Juliet cherries starting to bloom.
I think I’m looking at starting to replace some of the peach ground with apples. I’ll still plan on growing some peaches, just focus more on varieties which are pretty bullet proof for my area.
I called Schlabach’s nursery this morning and ordered 3 Reliance trees for trial. I hated to order just 3 trees. I’m sure it’s hardly worth them messing with, but I just wanted some to try.
I’ve grown Reliance before, a long time ago. I don’t remember it being a remarkable peach at all, but that was before I had much peach growing experience. The fellow I spoke with this morning said Reliance was as reliable as Contender and had a very good flavor, but was a very fuzzy peach. I wouldn’t expect the size to be very good since it’s such an old peach. I remember the color wasn’t very good either.
He said it ripens about a week before Redhaven there. That jives with my notes. It ripened -5 here, when I grew it 20 years ago.
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That really surprises me Faithful. My daughter lives in OH and I didn’t think it got that cold there. They are generally about 10 degrees warmer where they are in the winter and 10 degrees cooler in the summer. Beautiful weather by Kansas City standards.
Your trees are still young. They should get more productive with age.
It wouldn’t be a shock if it gets down to 25F here, which will be curtains for the already thin bloom of peaches. We generally have a spring freeze sometime around Easter.
Lots of variation across OH I think, we saw down to -12/-13 this winter before windchill. Sorry to hear about the losses this year
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My 3 Red Havens are fully bloomed. It makes pruning easy knowing I have blooms to spare. But as olpea said, there is a lot more chilly Spring left to worry about.
My concern is we are to get 4-5 inches of rain over the next 4 days. Wet blooms won’t get much pollination. Sunny and 57 F today so I hope some bees get out.
If you had some wind and dry weather during bloom, you should be OK. You can tell a peach flower is pollinated by the pollen tube. The pollen tube will lengthen once the flower is pollinated.
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Don’t give up on Loring peach. We are 7a and we are impressed by the Loring output.
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Loring produces large excellent quality peaches, when it produces here.
But I would never recommend the peach for the Kansas City area, or any place which gets cold winters. It was developed in MO, but the peach breeding station was located in southern MO (Mountain Grove) where the winters aren’t quite as bad.
I’ve grown it for 13 years. It’s indeed pretty winter tender. Doesn’t take much to knock the fruit out of it. I’ve the same experience with all Loring’s relatives - Topaz, Earli Loring, Glenglo, and to a lesser extent John Boy.
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Here’s an old thread on Loring for anyone interested.
olpea:
For me in SE WI I find Reliance ripens August 5-15th most years and Redhaven ripens late August.
Thin the Reliance really well. Even with thinning I get medium sized peaches. Only once did I have large peaches on Reliance and that was after a cold winter where few flowers survived.
Yes they are fuzzy but most year the flavor is good. The old reports about them not shipping well are true. They bruise super easily if picked at the full ripe stage. When I grew them in my backyard they were fine. When I grew Reliance 5 miles away at my large orchard on land owned by my brother in law, they would be bruised badly the morning after I picked and drove home with them.
Never had such bruising issues with Contender or Redhaven when I picked fairly ripe and drove back home with them.
I love Reliance but I can see smaller sized fruit and the easy bruising during transport may be an issue for a u-pick or commercial grower.
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Yeah Ohio can be all over the place. Unfortunately I live in one of the small little nuggets of 6a and my property is just east of nothing but mile of open farm field. The orchard is farthest from the field with a few small buildings in between, but we just get full force weather. Hoping maturity brings more hardiness.
Surfing around just saw that nemaguard is less hardy as a peach rootstock. Great, thats what the PF-24C is on that just arrived today from Cummins. 
Oh well, thankful to have land to grow and a family who loves working with me.
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If you have a well drained area, plant the rootstock below ground level (more below ground level is better) as long as the drainage at the bottom of the hole is good.
On the top of my terraces where I plant trees, I’ve had a few times I’ve planted trees close to 3’ deep. Not my choice obviously for most trees, but occasionally circumstances have dictated it. But the drainage is excellent on top of the terraces.
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have you got peaches off your redhaven yet Paul? i put one in last spring and im a half zone colder than you. it seemed to come through winter just fine. i got my 1st peach off reliance last summer. it was my 1st tree ripened peach i had ever eaten. was very good! i put in a contender 2 years ago but for whatever reason it didnt make it the winter and it was a mild one. we got to -20f a few times this last winter.
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Steve:
I have grown Reliance, Contender and Redhaven in SE WI for a good number of years. Out of the 3 my favorite is Redhaven for size, color and flavor. Out of the 3 it is the least winter hardy as some years I get some tip die back on it but find no damage on the other 2 varieties the same year.
Contender is good too and ripens late for me (mid-September) so it stretches out my peach picking season.
As far as flavor? Interesting topic. Most years my Reliance although small fruited are delicious. 2 years in 15 I had Reliance crops that were so poor in flavor only fit for cooking.
Contender too can vary in flavor year to year. the last year I had my Contender it was great on flavor. A year earlier I was not impressed and would have not suggested growing it.
All 3 varieties have performed very well overall for me in SE WI.
No I do not get a crop every year. In the 25 years I have grown peaches, I had a few years of light crops, one year where all the trees were heavily winter damaged and no fruit due to a cold winter.
But I have had many years of reliable crops on all 3 varieties. Enough to say worth growing! Good luck with your Redhaven!
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i grew out 6 siberian peach seeds last summer. ive heard they are solid z4 hardy but fruit quality is wanting. if they are that bad i can always graft them over to better hardy peaches. they are already 3-4’ tall.
@Olpea Not sure if you have tried China Pearl in the past, but it is the white peach version of Reliance for me. Lots of blooms and consistently a week later than all of my other varieties. It’s hard to time picking, but flavor is good if you get it right. I’m further south then you, but had similar winter temperatures and it is still heavy with blooms this spring.
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Thanks. Any idea when it ripens (plus/minus Redhaven)?
@olpea I remember you liking RisingStar peach… but no mention here. It had gone on my “potential” list here for Colorado Front Range as perhaps a tasty peach that blooms late and might fruit occasionally here. Thoughts? Contender seems to do the best here (though still always a challenge). Thanks.
I have it as +33. Starts right as Carolina Gold finishes up. I got mine from Cumberland Valley and Vaughn.
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It’s normally a cracker jack in cold winters. This year they had some blooms, but not a lot. So it really didn’t fit on the best or worst list. It maybe should have gone on the bottom of the best bud survival list.
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