I think with this excessive rain, bagging esp, not tightly (it happens) has contributing to more rot. When the top of a bag has opening, it allows water to get in and cause more rot.
Here is more horror just picked a few minutes ago.
It seems strange although highly possible that you have insect pressure that extends beyond what my orchard and the ones I manage experience. I would have thought that two spring insecticide sprays would be adequate, with Indar and Captan in the second spray at least. For nectarines, I spray one fungicide spray in early July and another 2 weeks before they ripen for my customers, and they get good production. Mine I spray every two weeks from July until mid-Aug because I want pristine fruit.
Do your trees get good eastern sun?
I realize that this season is not representative of your usual pressure and you had more clouds and rain than I did.
Cracked fruits are in Midwest too. This is my flavor Queen. Every single one of them on thetree cracked then rot. I pick up this many every day on the ground. It’s been this way for coupleof weeks at least.
Almost all my fruit did not have insect puncture wounds.
Also, you spray Imidan which has a kick back effect. That is helpful. I can’t use it where I live.
This year is an exception. Last year my nectarines did much better even with only 2 sprays.
I don’t use Imidan and haven’t for years. I mix Avaunt with Assail or use straight Avaunt. Half the orchards I manage got a couple apps of Asana and that has worked wonderfully this year except that it may have caused an uptick in scale.
Serious question - for a homeowner scale setup to prevent cracking due to increased moisture uptake, couldn’t you just put a large tarp over the ground where the trees are if you see lots of rain in the forecast prior to harvest? I know this isn’t practical for a large scale orchard, but for a dozen trees it could be viable.
There is a business called ACF Environmental we use at work to buy geotextile rolls as a pond liner and to line spillways before placing riprap. It’s basically a 12 ft wide woven heavy duty tarp on a roll. That might even be practical for a larger scale. Obviously you can’t get all precipitation to run off this way, but it might help.
Am I missing something?
I believe the problem is the moisture taken in through the skin expands the fruit and cracks the skin, so the tarp would need to cover the trees to prevent cracking.
I once spread tarp beyond the dripline of a mature Redhaven, hoping this would improve its brix. Somehow it tended to produce a lot of big bland fruit with a scattering of adequately peaches I could only discover by taking a bite. I assumed it had to be access to water from the soil.
The tarp seemed to make no difference. The roots can find water.
What might work is if you set out the tarp 3 weeks before fruit ripened, now that I think about it. Not for cracking, but at least for brix. Unfortunately, I believe gray skies are at least half the problem.
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When it has mostly rained 2-3 times a week from end of June to now, it is not practical to do what you said. I did that with cherries successfully when it rained only once right before picking time.
Also, like Alan said, moisture through the skin is also an issue.
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True Valor plums suffered very little cracking while Empress in a better location lost half of its fruit to it. These are my September main crop E. plums and I’d shifted to Empress in my nursery from Valor for fruit in that season. This is the first season in the decade I’ve been fruiting Empress where Valor showed more value. Empress tends to produce larger fruit, although Valor has good size and that may be the difference about cracking. Empress is a more precocious and reliable cropper. Both produce delicious, high brix fruit on a good year.
Coe’s Golden Drop seems like a slightly later Green Gage and cracks like it. Midland looks more promising although its grafts lost vigor this year, which was to some extent a problem with many European plum trees in my nursery and orchard- I’m not sure what’s the cause. Sometimes leafhoppers stop their growth during summer and even when I try they can be difficult to stay on top of with pesticide, but by now they should be done and trees would normally be putting out a late surge of growth, but it’s not happening.
Glad you mention Coe’s. I thought it would not crack or crack just a bit because I wo’t ripe for almost a month. I was wrong. Almost all of them crack, not yet rot.
I am still of the opinion that it’s a good idea to start with varieties proven to perform well in our climate, and then start exploring the more exotic. Eric of Plumhill farm has been growing a huge collection of varieties commercially for many years and his evaluations might be of particularly good use to you. I can e-mail you his list if you want. Every variety that he sent me at least crops well here.
Would you mind posting his list here so everyone could benefit from it?
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I don’t know how to get the file here but I will try downloading it and see if I can. Nope, I cannot and this paste job is the best I can do. The info is all here as first number is for production, second, taste and third hardiness. 1-5, 5 being best.
European Plums Production Taste Hardiness Japanese Plums/hybrids Production Taste Hardiness Peaches Production Taste Hardiness
1 Starks Blue 4 2 4 Shiro 5 2 4
2 Early Laxton 4 3 4 Ozark Premier 3 4 2 Starks Yellow 5 2 4
3 PP 6995 5 3 4 Comet de Kumetz 5 1 5
4 Mt Royal 5 2 5 Methley 5 3 4
5 Fellenburg 5 4 4 Toka 4 3 4
6 Long John 4 3 4 Kaga 4 3 4
7 Early Blue 5 2 5 Gracious 5 3 4
8 NY71 5 3 5 Surprise (may be Kaga) 4 3 4
9 Castleton 5 3 5 Alderman 4 4 3
10 General Hand Purple Heart 5 5 3
11 Early Transparent Gage Early Costello 4 4 3
12 Ersinger 5 4 5 kahinta 5 3 4
13 Pearl 2 Ptistin #5 4
14 Empress 5 5 5 Pembina 5 3 5 Seedlings 4 2 5
15 Alabaster 3 4 4 Pipestone 5 3 5
16 Cambridge Gage Red heart 1 3 2
17 Imperial Epinese (not?) Starks Delicious 4 3 4
18 Hungarian Red 3 3 4 Red Glow 3 2 4
19 Opal 5 4 4 Superior 4 4 5
20 Kirkes Blue 4 4 4 Marisopal
21 Peach Plum 3 3 4 Obil’naja 5 4 4
22 Jefferson (blue prune) 3 4 3 Rema 5 3 3
23 De Montford 4 4 4 Au Auburn 3 3 3
24 Schoolhouse 5 3 5 Rose Marie 4 5 3
25 Mirabelle De Metz 3 4 3 Formosa 3 5 2
26 Mirabelle de Nancy 2 4 2 Sumumo 4 4 4 Hardiness is determined by how many trees have died, and how often they have not fruited due to weather
27 American Mirabelle 4 5 5 Early Golden
28 Oullins Gage 5 4 4 Satsuma (not?)
29 Seneca 3 4 4 Wickson
30 Royal de Vilvoorde 3 5 3 Duarte
31 Queen Anne 3 2 2
32 Yakima 3 3 3
33 Rosey Gage 4 5
34 Catherine 2 5 4
35 Great Yellow 5 5 3
36 Jefferson gage 3
38 Valor 5
40 Stanley 4 2 4
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BTW, the Fellenberg graft was as bad as any Euro for cracking.
I wonder besides Plumhill who has American mirabelles.
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I do, but it is not a healthy graft and I don’t know if there is any usable wood. It bore tiny, insanely sweet fruit this year.
I wasn’t planning on growing plums (stone fruit in general to reduce spraying in general), but based on this list that would be my pick for a one of to start.
Plumhill posted that list in one of plum threads a while back. That’s how I became interested in Empress.
Plums are pain. Worse than peaches. For ne black knot is the hardest to control.
Out of all the fruits discussed in this forum, I’ve found the most gripes about peaches and plums, that’s for sure. Probably more frustration than praise overall, but for the “good years”, I envy descriptions of the fruit with how sweet and juicy everyone says homegrown versions are.
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