Hello,
I am wondering if I can get some advice. I am planning to plant at least 3 peach trees next year.
I have never grown peaches before although I am an experienced home orchardist (mostly apples)
These are my thoughts so far.
I would like an early, mid and late season peaches
We mostly eat peaches fresh and I like the melting types, although we might get into canning.
I am hoping to do low spray or no spray, but I do have spraying equipment if necessary because of my small apple orchard.
I am in southeast Michigan zone 6a
Hoping for varieties that won’t be as susceptible to late frost
I have 4 trees that mature in two-week intervals starting in late July: Glenglo, Redhaven, Ernie’s Choice, and Contender. I am pretty happy with these trees so far. I do spray in a way that is somewhat consistent with the low-impact spray schedule posted by Scott in the Guides. In my experience, insects have been more of a challenge than fungi.
Hello,
I just did a little research on those. Looks like all of them are resistant to bacterial leaf spot.
How do these do against leaf curl? Also, what about winter hardiness?
Thanks for your information
I am not sure about the no spray theory. The peaches I grow get horrible without spraying. Peaches are a hit and miss item in our region, I am in SW Ohio (6a-5b). I have 3 producing peach trees and 1 newer one that has not produced any peaches yet. I have Contender and Redhaven peaches. The Contender has produced peaches the last three years. The Redhaven tree has only produced a nice huge crop one year out of the last three years. I had three peaches off of it last year, one peach this year. I mention that because I know the " Haven" series peach was developed in Michigan, I believe. I have been disappointed in the peach production of the Redhaven.
Reliance peach is supposed to be a better cold weather peach. The Flaming Fury peach series has a long range of peach ripening dates.Check their site for a lot of good information about their peach series. I picked one of theirs out because it ripens 40 days after the Redhaven, Fat Lady. Usually Redhaven, it seems, is the standard peach ripening date the peach descriptions use. Either + or - days or weeks.
As you know we get late frosts very often so , like I mentioned, it is hit or miss with picking peaches. It always seems to frost or have a freeze warning during the peach blooming time. I put old bed sheets over my trees when the weather forecast says frost/freeze. Even then it is a gamble. There must have been a micro weather frost pocket in my area this year. No frost/freeze was forecast during the blooming period , so I did put the sheets over my peach trees. I only had peaches , on my Contenders, in the middle of the tree. Even my apple trees seem to have taken a freeze/frost hit as well. The apple trees seemed to have apples on the inner parts of the trees.
In South Central Kentucky, tried Reliance and Alberta about 25 years ago. 5 trees each.
No. spray. Relatively frost-free location.
Got one small crop off Reliance. This location had not had any peaches before.
After the one crop, borers and worms ruined future fruit that set, and soon killed all the trees. None
survived even 10 years.