Brad,
I’ve grown or grow most of the peaches you mention, here in zone 6 KS/MO. We generally don’t have to worry about extreme cold freezing the fruit buds too much, but it does happen.
Here are my thoughts on varieties you list. Some of the dates you list don’t at all line up with how those peaches ripen here. Therefore I will put days +/- Redhaven by the varieties for my area.
PF1: -30 I agree with Tippy, not worth growing. It’s really a pretty sub-par peach. Stick with stuff which won’t disappoint your customers. You want repeat business, and while PF1 is better than most grocery store peaches, it won’t leave a very good impression in the mind of your customers. Not worth it just to sell peaches a week earlier.
Harrow Diamond: -21 is fine early peach
Sure Crop: -14 is a consistent producer, but it can be small and can have trouble developing flavor in wet years. If you think Risingstar would work in your zone 5, it beats the pants of Surecrop. Risingstar is a more vigorous tree, the fruit is bigger, and the flavor is much better. Risingstar has produced very consistently for me here.
Garnet Beauty: -14 is about the size of Risingstar but the flavor isn’t nearly as good.
Risingstar (-14) Garnet Beauty and Surecrop ripen all at the same time here.
PF 8 ball- It’s a little early for me to evaluate this one, but so far not too impressed. The 5 or 6 trees I put in haven’t produced anything yet, which they should have by now. They seem also to have a lot of issues with canker.
Blazingstar: +4 It’s a great tasting peach, one of the best, but I would not recommend it for your area. It’s very inconsistent here. I would expect even more production problems in Zone 5
Reliance: +5 Not the greatest quality, but probably good enough for a fresh Vermont peach. Challenger ripens about the same time here and is a better quality peach.
PF Lucky 13: +8 This one is a dog. A mangy dog. Unfortunately, I’ve grown this one far too long. I’ve grown it at two different locations and it is a very poor producer, except in the best of years.
Polly I’ve not grown.
Intrepid: +14 Like Challenger I don’t have a tremendous amount of experience, but so far it appears to be a fairly reliable peach.
Contender: +21 Very dependable producer. Decent peach
Blushing Star: +25 Flavor wasn’t consistent for me. Bac. spot magnet. It could be finicky producer in marginal years. There are better white peaches out there.
PF24c: +24 These trees took a while to get going, so my opinion wasn’t great on them for a while. Now that they have fully matured. I really like this peach. It’s dependable producer, sizes peaches well under a full crop load. The peaches aren’t outstanding flavor, but decent enough.
Belle of Georgia: +32 No way would a grow this peach commercially. I grew it once in my backyard. It drops fruit horribly, bruises super easy, is super soft and the flavor is only marginal for a white peach.
PF Fat lady +35 This is a really great peach.
You obviously have a hole in your production where Redhaven would fit. I would plant some Redhavens. Also I would plant some PF 9a trees. They ripen 4 days before Redhaven. They are the best cultivar for that window. Redhaven is the best cultivar for its window.
I also agree that Saturn is an excellent peach. Very heavy producer. The only problem I’ve had with it is stem pick tears, which are quite bad. But if you can let customers pick that peach themselves, and explain they are going to get some pick tears, they will be OK with it, especially once they taste the sugar content of the peach.
