Anyone know what the chill hours are for Spicezee? This warm weather is causing me some concern. Of all my trees Spicezee seems to be the one wanting to wake up the most. Even my Apricots aren’t as perky. I’m curious how many chill hours this thing needs. I’m guessing not many. The good thing is that it’s loaded with fruiting buds. But if they pop too early it won’t end up mattering.
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Is it in the ground? That is amazing its swelling? at this point. Holy cow… I’ve had snow in early May!
DWN has 200-300 hours listed, which seems ridiculously low.
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Dave Wilson states 200-300 chill hours for spicezee. You might be able to prune off the early flowers that want to blossom right before they blossom. I did this with my dessert delight nectarine the day after Christmas and its just now starting to flower again. So I delayed flowering for close to a month! Don’t know if I just got lucky but think its worth a try. What I did not prune I pinched, around 30 blossoms. Also, most everybody who posted pics here should check out the DEALING WITH THRIPS THREAD. One properly timed organic spray will eliminate your thrips problems!! Good luck!
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200-300! Man, I would typically not even buy a tree with that low chill hours but I got the tree my first year setting up the orchard and didn’t know that much about fruit trees…
Well you can always graft other varieties with higher chill hours. 4 varieties come to mind that are very similar if not better than spicezee. These may or may not work where you are but have many more chill hours. 1) Heavenly white nectarine,650 chill hours, my favorite white nectarine by a ways, super sweet, great acid balance,very large but prone to russet 2)Arctic supreme white peach,700 chill hours,large size white peach with outstanding flavor.3)Arctic blaze white nectarine,700-800 chill hours very sweet, not as balanced flavor,has been tough for me to crop in northcentral California valley.4)Sno beauty white peach 750-800 hours, I don’t grow this one but its supposed to be very sweet and tasty. I believe these are all worth a try except arctic blaze because it can be finicky. Hope this helps,good luck!
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Thanks. I actually did graft several things to Spicezee last year. But nearly all failed with the exception of Honey Royale. I discovered last year that peaches/nectarines can be a real bitch when it comes to spring grafting. I had gotten a little too confident in my ability to graft. I’ve had so much success with apples, pears, plums, etc but peaches were humbling. I also managed to successfully graft Honey Lite to Scarlet Prince Peach but that was as far as I got with nectarines. I failed at grafting artic star, Indian Free, and contender. I’d like to try grafting Article Glo and Jay this spring but it might be better for me to try summer bidding if I can find a source for budwood.
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I hear you on the peach/nectarine being tougher.It does take practice but I have had good success with whip grafts and bark grafts. My brother uses cleft grafts with good success, I haven’t needed to try that yet. Congrats on the honey royale, that should be great! As for the arctic glo and jay 400-500 hours chill may be a bit low for you but they are both very good. Also arctic star is great but only 300 chill hours, no loss to you. If you are having success grafting other things its just a matter of time till you get peaches down. Happy grafting!
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My Dapple Supreme in a pot is blossoming, unfortunately, and so are the UFO peach grafted branches on my big peach tree. I guess I’ll try snipping off the blossoms. But it’s just terrible timing, with the buckets of rain that are falling from the sky. Not only will they not fruit this year, but they’ll be vulnerable to all the funguses getting in via the blossoms. Bummer.
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Since mine is in a colder area than WV, mine looks ok, and I have yet to have problems in this area with early blooming via low chill. It tends to bloom along with my other trees, and withstood the late freeze too, when PF Lucky 13 did not. So it’s hardy enough if you can keep it dormant. Mine is going on 5th leaf now.Time is screaming by!
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Looks like a week of dry weather for nor cal finally! Also if you snip off blossoms fungus cannot enter via blossom.
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Good work on stretching the low chill fruit boundaries fruiting spicezee and arctic glo in 5b/6a. They are very different in that spicezee is very sweet, but rich too, arctic glo is sweet and tangy. Your spicezees look thrips free too, nice!
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It’s interesting how a location can hurt or help a fruit. It appears chilling hours are useful, but not the whole story.Maybe the fruit looks prettier here, yet in California the full potential of the fruit can be reached. Higher sugars from more sun etc. Most often not the case here. Which is fine, I’m happy with the fruit the way it is. Still kills store bought.
Comments about the fruit I passed around often included “best I ever had”. With Arctic Glo mostly, it works here.
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I’m not a professional by any means…so I’m looking for advice and help here on my spice zee. I’ve had it for 4.5 years now. It has grown from 5 ft to 15 ft almost (estimating) it produced fruit on the second and third year. But last summer and this summer it has not provided any fruit. The leaves look healthy, the trunk is huge now, the branches are all over, and the flowers are nice when they appear for about a week. Not sure why It stopped growing fruits. Any clue?
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Yes research thrip damage on nectarine flowers. Just a guess but it could be this.
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I can’t help, but mine too cut down. it has fruit, but only about 20, when it had 70 last year? The fruit looks great! Not sure what is going on?
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I see you are in Houston. That means it’s not spring freeze damage. Spice Zee is listed as 200-300 chill hrs. That’s not much. However it could be lack of sufficient chilling in the winter. This past spring is the first where some of my peaches and nectarines flowered but didn’t set. I think the cause was lack of chilling. I’m at 4500ft in west Texas. We get way more chilling than Houston but have varieties that need more chilling. Next yr may be better.
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Mine have gave me fruit the first year in the ground in San Diego. Did you get sets that aborted?
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Robin, I have had bad fruit set on nearly all my peaches and nectarines the last 2 years due to lack of chill. I only received about 200 chill hours this year and my average is about 550. Last year was not as bad but still I did not get the set I got 2 years prior. I am sure parts of Houston received much less that 200 chill hours. Hope for colder, but not too cold a winter next year. I have everything from 150 chill hours to 750 chill hours stone fruits.
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<img src="//growingfruit-images.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/original/3X/b/1/b1e940d7a2de7d0a4daba62742ca44e10746c255.JPG" width=“690” height="920 These are pretty good, the tree is right by our front porch because of the beautiful bloom and red leaves in spring. Very susceptible to thrips though. These fruits have measured 18 to 22 brix. Like most white fruits I prefer them firm ripe.
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