I bought some Tordan and a generic version of this to use on all the darn honeysuckle growing all over my property. UNTIL I read it does more than just kill what you want to kill and kills things beyond the stunk/root of the item you put it on. I had not had an actual person I know confirm that until I read your post here. I am glad I did not use it. I had a lot of the honeysuckle growing around my pond area. It was suppose to just kill the roots of the item you wanted to get rid of, is what was reported to me when I bought it. Thanks for confirming what I had read elsewhere.
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That’s how I feel about yellow peaches. Good ones taste similar.
I think @Olpea may have a much better judgment on yellow peaches.
Other peaches like Indian Free or Indian Blood Cling are a different story.
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The problem is when it is applied to the stump the goal is to kill that stumps roots which it does. Sometimes 3 trees have overlapping roots any roots connected to that stump will die so the other 2 trees die. It can stay in the soil a long time. You might wonder what its purpose is which is fence rows, road sides, and easements etc.
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Re: Yellow peaches
I pretty much agree Tippy. There are some things like some peaches are prone to be mealy in hot weather, and some tend to be more sweet in their ripening windows than others. Early and mid season yellow peaches tend to be more juicy and less firm than later season peaches (which is why later season peaches are generally better for canning).
There are some sub acid peaches, which tend to have a milder flavor, and there are more intensely flavored peaches which taste more like a good nect (which is sort of the opposite of sub acid peaches).
I’ve grown over 100 varieties of yellow peaches and I’d say 90% of them taste pretty close (with the exceptions noted above). I’ve always said weather (i.e. how much rain/sun) crop load, and where the peach was picked on the tree has more of an impact on taste than the variety in 95% of yellow peaches.
Re: Removing Autumnstar peach trees
I seem to be noticing Autumnstars are a little more short lived than other varieties. I have a few Autumnstars at the orchard which were planted in 2012. They’ve played out and are breaking down pretty badly and really need to be removed, whereas most other trees planted in 2012 look like they have a few more years left.
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How far away was the tree from the raised planters @mamuang? I am putting some planters in front of new trees and trying to figure out a good distance.
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In my climate it lasts for about a year and a half in the soil, as far as I can tell. I’ve used Tordon quite extensively to spot spray trash trees in pasture and fence rows. In soils around here, it will migrate about 5’ away from the spot it was sprayed. If soil is lighter or more sandy, it could travel farther.
Perhaps the concern about using it around a pond is that it could migrate into the pond and kill vegetation you don’t want killed. It has relatively low toxicity to aquatic life, so it shouldn’t cause a fish kill unless someone went crazy with it.
As Clark mentioned, it can travel via root grafts of plants trees of the same species. Or you could see some injury of different species where roots overlap, as Clark mentioned.
I’ve used it under lots of trees carefully with mostly no accidents. I’ve used it to kill trash trees in a tree wind break with no issues. But I didn’t just spray it under the trees. I cut the trash trees out and treated the stumps.
Once I sprayed it under some pawpaw trees in my backyard to kill some poison ivy. That did injure the Pawpaw trees, noted by deformed foliage, but the trees recovered.
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That tree was there before we put a raised bed near it. They were only 8 ft apart. In addition to the distance, there are other matters you need to consider:
- Will you spray your fruit trees with chemicals?
- If so, what will you grow in your raised beds. You may not be able to grow those plants/veggies organically.
- a fruit tree can be close to a raised bed if the tree does shade the bed more than a couple of hours.
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Thanks, Mark.
With your feedback on another thread, I am going to buy a Contender peach to replace an Autumn Star.
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That makes sense. I did not think of it that way. I thought it was because it contaminate the ground around it. It makes more sense what you mentioned.
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Contender peach does really well here for me, when I get fruit from it.
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Last winter I slept poorly while deciding to remove four apple trees out back.
Hunt & Rosemary Russets produced wooden golf balls for years on end. Since summers keep getting longer & hotter, there seemed no reason to keep them. I sent scions several places & will graft them both for someone high in the woods. (This is the latest spring I can remember. Some of the apple buds on remaining trees are just now opening!) Maybe there they will produce good fruit.
Bardsey attracts codling moths like no other, not even Liberty. I will not use poison here and covering with orchard socks works for all the others. After 9 years, it comes down.
Connell Red was an experiment. The tree is vital, hugely spreading and productive. In this dry heat all flavor dissipates and the really big fruit are bland in the extreme. Down it goes.
Shackleford (thanks Dave B!) and Otterson were waiting for somewhere to go. I needed another plum & ordered one. They are planted now. When Rosemary gets some leaf surface I’ll whack it and cleft graft that stump.
I sleep better now.
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Sorry to hear that Hunt Russet didn’t work out for you! Ours has not been a prolific bearer as of yet - and the birds seem to like to nibble on the buds, which doesn’t help - but the few apples we’ve gotten have been very tasty. (Though the fruit does seem to be on the harder end even in our significantly less arid climate.)
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I’m going to remove Snow Queen, I got this tree from the farmers market, so far I had maybe 3 fruit at max, but I didn’t see the suckers, I thought they were part of the tree, so the tree is almost dead. I managed to regraft some branches to my Donut peach.
This empty space or container will be used to plant English Morello, I need a sour cherry, sweet cherries are very cheap here, but you can’t get sour cherry unless it’s in a can.
Reading through this thread, I’m amazed that I don’t have most of the problem here. My biggest pest for growing fruit trees is maybe one squirrel, a few grasshoppers, and not enough chill hours for some varieties.
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I hung onto Hunt Russet for years, since its first fruit - after a mild summer - was unlike anything I’d encountered: tangerine and the sharp tang of rose finish, 18 & 19 Brix at harvest, quite chewy early on. I’d love to see how it is by this time of year, for it is a formidable keeper. It is semi-spur with one (!) to five lovely pink flowers per spur, which partly limits production. The tree on Antonovka or its own roots can live 200 years, about twice the apple average.
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Plums. This year Methley and Shiro and are out. Burbank came out last fall. Poor production, taking up too much space and loaded with black knot. I am done with plums i think. Maybe beach plums some day.
Romeo cherry - time to just rip off the bandaid. 6 years and all i had was a spindly 3 foot stick. I dont think it liked the high humidity here.
YOUNGBERRY. The devil’s own bramble. Monstrous, unmanageable, ok fruit in small amounts that bc it sets low in the bush un-harvestable. Took over about 400 sf even with me trying to contain it, and i will be cutting out tip root spots for years. Never plant this berry.
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There seems to be something genetically wrong with this variety, although it produces very flavorful peaches in its season- here there’s a tremendous difference between varieties because, to me, a couple points in brix IS a tremendous difference., but I digress. Autumn Star gets weird cambium damage on trunks that usually only appears on stressed trees but seems a general trait with AS. I can’t say they are shorter lived here yet, but they end up not growing as vigorously or evenly as most other varieties I grow.
Another variety that sometimes has problems here, but in branch die-back instead, is Glenglo.
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Removing dozens of plums myself. PC makes them hard to raise in this area. Many stone fruits i determined the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
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My Autumn Star lasted about 10 years but after 8 years, its production started to decline and there was not many new growth despite urea fertilizer application each spring.
I took it out two months ago. It looked pathetic. I like the fruit, a large tasty peaches but I put it out of its misery.
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Understand completely.
A bit older and not much wiser here, but i’m going to put my energy into things that do well. Apples peaches and pears thrive here and i get results.
Do you juice a lot of yr fruits?
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Yes i do but in this case " The saying is the juice worth the squeeze is a question people ask when they wonder if all the hard work is worth the reward at the end ." not literally juice.
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