How hardy is Veteran? Most of what I’ve read says it’s zone 4 to 5. I think the one I got last season is probably dead. I have one I grafted last year too that looks dead to the snow line. Just wondering if it might be something with the year or if I should just forget about it? My area is marginal anyway for peaches.
i am patiently waiting for a truly hardy z4 peach to be developed. there are some that are claiming thiers is but either the fruit quality is poor or its only marginally hardy. love me a fresh peach!.
Me too, that’s pretty much all stonefruit for me. My Contender has survived -32 and -26, but no blooms yet. This year was just a bad year for stonefruit for me. I lost an apricot and a plum that was supposed to be hardy to -40 (the plum).
sorry to hear that. i had 2 grapes that were hardy to -40f and grew like crazy last summer. both dead. on the plus side my nanking cherries and adirondack gold apricot are loaded with blooms so i have my fingers crossed. i hope your contender fruits for you. if it does it gives me hope here. i have a grafted sweet cherry and some paw paws im trying on the south facing wall of my house. im hoping if i can bury them in snow and keep them from coming out of dormancy too early, i might get some fruit. the struggle continues. good luck to you sir!
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K86…the rootstock… is a flowering peach…it has bloomed regularly for the past few years. It sets no fruit, although i would imagine it could make a great parent of some super hardy peach… I really don’t have many flowering peaches to cross it with though…just some container trees that bloom weeks earlier.
I’ve tried Contender (died on me), Reliance, Red Haven, Saturn, various others…blooms have always been sporadic, lots of dead wood, lots of dead flower buds. I’m going back to my container method and will stop growing in the ground peaches/nectarines. Plums, pluots, sweet cherry (lapins), pears, apples all do pretty good for me…apricots are another very iffy one…some years lots of fruit, some years lots of dead branches. Very hit or miss. I have a few seedling apricots that i’m going to try.
@steveb4 thanks and good luck with your cherries and apricots. I planted a couple sweet cherries this spring that are supposed to be zone 4 hardy. I’m really hoping they do well.
@warmwxrules what do you do for your nectarines in a container? Anything special? That’d be fun to give a try. I had Reliance and it was doing really well, but it died from canker on the trunk. I have one grafted to Manchurian apricot to give a second try.
Just a 15 gallon or bigger pot. The problem i’ve ran into is that over the years you start chasing wood higher and higher and you’ll get a lot of long branches with no fruit///also due to root restriction you just don’t get the growth you get with an inground tree so growing fruit buds for the next year becomes a challenge. Regular pruning and maybe even letting the tree take a year off (cut it way back). Root pruning is also said to be helpful, but i’ve never done it. Also in the summer container trees need daily watering in the heat//
This was couple weeks ago during frost/freeze when i had to move them in garage. They have already set fruit==now they’ll need to be sprayed for curculio…i also have a container apricot and a pluot. The pluot will probably go into the ground or chopped (seedling and i have no idea if the fruit will be anything good).
I have never tried growing Veteran.
what z4 hardy sweets are you growing? i may hit you up for a few scions to put on mine next spring…
I’d love to see one of you guys in the far north build a removable shelter for a peach tree. I read years ago someone built some out of wooden concrete forms. He would put them up, insulate them, and run a very minimal amount of heat (like a 60 watt light bulb) during the coldest part of the winter. Then take it down in the spring.
I think one could even use pretty thin plywood or osb with some minor reinforcing for the sides. The roof would need to be a bit more substantial for snow load, but not too much because one could put some temporary poles inside to help support the roof.
To me the biggest drawback would be the initial cost, and the storage of the forms. If one ripped 2 X 4’s to use as the stiffeners for the plywood/osb, each form would only be 2" thick. With the insulation board glued on, that would add another 2". I’d think about 13 forms would cover a really large tree (10 for the sides and 3 for the top). Stacked on their side, that would be 3 feet thick worth of forms for one tree. But it would guarantee 250 high quality peaches, even in the coldest climate.
Plywood/osb is probably a little expensive right now to try it, but it probably won’t stay expensive forever.
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I was going to try something similar for frost protection. After messing around with tarps and frost blankets blowing in the wind, I concluded that osb was the way to go since it was so cheap and sturdy. Then the pandemic hit… Yikes $$$$$. I want to try this for at least one large tree next spring if prices come down. I could run extension cords out to the orchard for a small electric heat source, but I’d like to find something non electric that would work. Maybe a few 5 gallon buckets of hot water with a sealed lid?
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If my calculations are close. 10 gal of water heated to 200 degrees contains about 1/2 of a kWh. A 60 watt light bulb run for 12 hrs gives off about 3/4 of a kWh of energy.
Maybe some physics person can check me on this, but it looks like three 5 gallon buckets of water heated to 200 degrees is the equivalent. You sure wouldn’t want to spill that on yourself though.
If I didn’t have electricity, I’d probably go with an oil/kerosene lamp. They are cheap to run and give off a lot of heat. We keep a few just for emergency purposes. Just make sure it’s vented well when opening it up, for there may be some carbon monoxide buildup in there overnight. I’d also probably screw the door shut, so no little kid would get in there overnight, thinking it’s a neat little club house. Might even put a warning sign on the door for good measure. If I didn’t care about the air quality (I doubt dormant trees care) I might even burn diesel fuel in the lamp.
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@warmwxrules those look great, do you get a decent amount of fruit from them? I might have to try a couple next year.
@steveb4 I got Kristin and Hartland. Those have been the only two I’ve found that are actually consistently rated to zone 4. They should also be able to pollinate each other. I’d be happy to share scions with you.
@Olpea that’d be interesting to try. I made a foam enclosure for a fig tree that survived last winter with no additional heat. I was just xps foam board. I’m sure you could do something similar with a structure for a peach. Once in a while I see walk in cooler panels for sale on marketplace or craigslist. I wonder if something like that would work? A while back I found some videos of growers in Russia growing them in a way that they’d bend the year old branches over in the winter and protect them with leaves or something. I’ll have to see if I can find it again.
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There was a guy years ago that was (is?) growing a palm tree in the ground (a hardier variety) in Milwaukee, WI. He built exactly what you are talking about…just enclosed it in the winter and heated the inside a little(I think he used plywood/foam). Last i knew it was above his roofline and the form was starting to look like a skyscraper.
1/2 osb here is $50 right now… i remember when it was 8 bucks a sheet. Something has to give because i’m not spending $8 for a crooked 2x4.
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Have you seen this product?
I haven’t seen it. I’m skeptical though. Many times these types of products are marketed to farmers/orchardists, but have no proven record, other than testimonials.
I’d want to see some peer reviewed research before I’d try it.
Once i see what sets i’ll thin heavily to a couple fruit per branch at most. Maybe 25 or so fruit per tree.
I’d say that’s worth it. Any pollination issues that early?
Not that i’ve seen. Looks like a lot of fruit set so i’ll have to really thin. So easy to leave too many fruit.
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