I didn’t mean to suggest Desmond Layne bred any resistance into the peaches. Rather, he seemed to do lots record keeping for several years on varieties which worked well in SC. Apparently SC doesn’t have the problems w/ bac. spot that I have. I’ve tried several of Layne’s peach picks and they get bac. spot too bad here. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised. KS/MO are very windy states and the farm seems to be in an area which is especially windy.
I’m not sure any of Layne’s peach recommendations were actually developed at Clemson (but I could be wrong). I think most of them were just peaches planted at farms listed (i.e. Cooley, etc.) and he just kept data on them. I’ve noticed several of his peach picks were peaches developed in CA. Like you say CA breeders don’t breed for bac. spot resistance. I doubt most of their growers even know what it is.
Mark,
I’ll give a two fold answer to the issues you raised. You may have already done this, and this is the research professor in me, I would seek opinions from a variety of sources for varieties that will do well in your area. Naturally, your local extension agent, and I don’t mean just anybody. There has to be somebody there that specializes in peaches. Other peach growers in your area. Pick the brains of the guys at Cumberland Valley. You’d be surprised at what they know, and what varieties that are their top sellers in different locations. They talk to growers all the time and they know what’s going on.
Secondly, you can’t grow every variety in existence. Too much experimenting leads to many problems and a lot of extra work and expense with very little, if anything, to show for it. As an example, when we were on GW, I got a lot of criticism because I wouldn’t grow everybody’s darling O"henry. Although O’Henry is a very good peach, it is highly susceptible to bacterial spot here, in SC. Everyone kept saying, 'So spray for it, it’s worth it." NO IT ISN’T. Why would I want to introduce disease into my orchard, just so I can grow one particular peach. It’s counter productive.
Who the heck needs all of those problems, not to mention the extra expense and work. You have to learn how to garden smart. Too many gardeners have no plan, and when you have no plan, the results are poor
production, wasted effort and expense.
I thought I “had a plan”, but now I’m questioning it…
My plan was to “trial” a few varieties that I thought would be cold hardy (or fairly so anyway) and those that give me issues or are not reliable producers here, I would remove. To that end I’ve put in one each of Redhaven, Intrepid, Madison, PF17, Indian Free, Contender, Reliance, and PF24c.
I am removing my two 6th leaf EarliTreat this year - Beautiful disease free specimens, but just out of zone and have made a peach only one year. They are in the way of a metal building going up in a couple weeks, but they were going anyway. Too much effort for no result.
Now I’m wondering (because I didn’t do a ton of research on the varieties I chose, other than to see if they had potential to survive here) if some are prone to certain diseases that I may have inadvertently introduced to my young/small 8-tree peach area?
The grass is always greener on the other side. With all the worms that get into apples, I went for peaches. Not as many! So far I say it was a good idea. You made some good choices though. I don’t know what zone you’re in? If 5 you may have problems with any peach. Here it’s warm enough to grow them.
Clemson had the most comprehensive information on peach variety trials I had ever seen. My old links to this information no longer work and I can not find the complete data set on their web page. They do still have several “annual peach reports” on the site. Here is the link to the one from 2011
(added later) THIS REPORT HAS A BRIX RATING FOR HUNDREDS OF PEAHES https://www.clemson.edu/extension/peach/commercial/files/2011sc_peach_reportlayne.pdf
I’m not familiar with all 17 variety in the report, but it looks like 3 are from SC, 5 are from Georgia and 1 is from NC.
Peach lovers are lucky if they live in a state where peaches are money. I don’t think Cornell takes them all that seriously because most of the good peach land in NY is now too expensive for commercial production- besides some lake protected orchards way up-state, where there’s Great Lakes climate modification. I rely on the fine work done in NJ at Rutgers, but they certainly don’t seem to focus on disease resistance, or even on high brix.
You are probably right and I probably went too far to say that none of Layne’s peach recs were developed at Clemson. It has been quite a while since I’ve seen his rec. list and I had forgotten all his recs for the peach season.
Ray,
That’s good advice, and I’ve done quite a lot of that. I’ve also done a lot of experimenting and am now mostly cullling stuff which isn’t working for me. Perhaps the experimenting has cost me (almost certainly has) but I’ve also learned a lot from doing it. Experience is a costly teacher, but leaves indelible lessons on the memory. I’m still experimenting, but doing so a little more cautiously as a commercial grower. Today I ordered some peaches and other stone fruit from Adams. I ordered about a half dozen of PF 8 ball and PF 19-007 each. Both are supposed to be bac. spot resistant and late bloomers. I need some better peaches for those windows, so I chanced it. I also ordered a couple more Silver Gem nects, because the one I have produces pretty amazing fruit and is fairly clean so far from bac. spot.
Interestingly Cumberland Valley doesn’t recommend Winblo for their customers anymore. I haven’t discussed this personally with them, but when we were on the old forum, someone posted they asked them about it, and apparently some of Cumberland’s customers were having issues w/ Winblo, but never indicated specifically what those issues were.
I have O’henry both at the house and 8 trees at the farm. I also have 5 Winblo at the farm (but not at the house). So far, both get bac. spot pretty bad, but Winblo gets it slightly worse for me. I may end up removing O’Henry at the farm, along with Winblo, but Winblo will probably be the first to go. At the house O’henry just gets a little bac. spot, which barely shows up on the fruit.
You know in Texas there are certain areas that are known for peach production and I’m sure more acerage could be put into use for this. But I feel at least publicaly that Texas A and M is somewhat stuck in there ways in this area. If you look at there reccomended lists they really havent changed much in over twenty years. There is a geneticist there that has produced some new peach and nectarine cultivars (a few of witch I grow now) and even those are not on there lists! I hear about new varieties on this forum and other sources but get the feeling no one here in Texas is trialing any of them. Can’t say for sure but I get the feeling the academics here are stuck in there ways. I am not the only person who thinks so. They feel like they know what works and they are not trying anything new. I have issues with there pear recomendations as well at least as far as matched against my own experiences. I admit I may be going off half cocked but I don’t think so. I have not seen much to think that are trialing a lot of new and different varieites.
It’s a mislabeled peach so I don’t know what it is
We actually sort of adopted this peach as our “signature” variety and gave it the name Tubby Dubby. The thing I like about it is that it is capable of producing large peaches which are sweet even in a bad year. It also produces sweet peaches in the interior bottom of the tree, which is unusual for us.
It does have a pretty big drawback though. It gets bac. spot worse than any variety I’ve ever grown. I only grow this variety at my best location (house) and still if not sprayed w/ mycoshield the fruit is completely unless. However if sprayed, it produces gorgeous double red sweet fruit.
Iowa,
It’s my opinion you will be fine with those varieties. I’ve grown/grow the varieties you mention and they have all done fairly well w/ the exception of Indian Free, which split and got bac. spot pretty bad. Plus there is a chance it won’t ripen in time in Iowa.
The other caveat might be Intrepid. My Intrepids get bac. spot, so I don’t know how well that variety will work for me, but I suspect it will work fine for you. I think you get less rain on average and probably won’t have that much bac. spot pressure. You may never even see it.
That’s a joke!! You should see how many millions of dollars
universities throw away every year on useless crap. I’m heavily
involved in our local university and it makes me sick.
Wildscaper,
I think you’re dead on. Once they’ve attained tenure and position, many academicians retire on the job. Clemson was very fortunate to have a very energetic and personable man in Dr. Layne. He revitalized the entire peach program in SC. I’ve often wondered how Washington State lured him
away from Clemson.
I noticed that Clemson rated the brix for Winblo at one farm at 13.6 and 15.3 at another farm in the same year of 2011 report. Seems like a huge difference for the same variety at two locations of the same state for the same year and in a similar climate…
I’m not convinced that brix levels are a good judge of sweetness unless the peaches are at the same exact level of ripeness Don’t know what stage of ripeness Clemson used in their evaluations, but given their focus on commercial peach production, I’m guessing their peaches were not nearly as ripe as when folks here measure peach brix.
Yeah…from year to year the brix levels can have drastic changes. I usually go by more of what they think of it then by what the sugar levels show. Not sure if they same people do all the testing, but if your eating that much peach, you should have a good idea what is good and what isn’t.
I think ego plays into this somewhat too. Some of these people have been at the universities a long time. I am sure they put a lot of time and effort into trialing and developing there favorite cultivars, training methods and spray schedules years and years ago. Some of them may not want to hear anything about new varieties or chemicals or ideas of doing things. And I’ll bet the idea of having to do it all over again isn’t all that apealing. Don’t get me wrong there is a lot of great fruit growing info over here. A whole lot in fact. I just think that there is more trialing to be done on some newer things.
I would agree with that. Newberry and Columbia Star blackberries both released from OSU were hyped a lot. Turns out Newberry is a very cool plant, but for me and also JT we are finding Columbia Star lacking. JT gave it 2 years, I have yet to taste this years berries. If it is just average I will probably remove the plant. It was supposed to be more productive than most, better taste, neither trait I’m seeing here. maybe in milder climates they do better? Not sure why it is under performing for us? But with the info on it, you would think it was the best berry ever!
