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Our Starking Delicious and Summer
Pearl have been here for almost 13 years and have held up to our -20 temps,
although the temps have not sustained for more than 3-4 days.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 5:47
PM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] grocery store
peaches and nectarines
The only ones of these that have survived here at least 3
years ( and -29 F) as branches on Siberian C trees are Madison, Reliance,
and Redhaven. Encore, PF 1, PF7, PF 24 and Coral Star survived a winter
or 2 but not the -29F. Starking Delicious, Summer Pearl, are young in testing
and I haven't tried the others. I want to have another shot at Encore. None of
these rootstocks except Bailey are hardy here, even as rootstocks under ground
but I haven't tried Tenn Nat VF281.1, and Bailey as a rootstock causes late
growth of the cultivar into the fall.
Dave
Central MN, z 4a
----- Original Message -----
Sent: 1/23/06 4:06:05 PM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] grocery store
peaches and nectarines
We grow Earliglow, Madison,
Starking Delicious, Reliance, Summer Pearl, Redskin, Redhaven, Stark Finale,
Encore, Flamin' Fury in PF1, PF7, PF24, PF25, Coral Star FA59, Sugar Giant,
John Boy and Laurol. They begin ripening in early July with Flamin'
Fury PF1 and continue through September with Laurol. The best for
flavor is a toss up. The Redhaven have always been a great peach, but
the John Boy is giving it a run for its money. The easiest to grow is
Redhaven by far, but the newer Flamin' Fury is running a close second.
Most of the rootstock is Bailey, Lovell, and Tenn Nat VF281.1.
Our reasons for choosing these are the result of an eight year peach
rootstock performance test done by the USDA Agricultural Research Service, a
synopsis of which follows:
To increase orchard productivity and efficiency, growers are
looking for solutions in the form of new rootstocks that are more resistant
to winter cold damage, drought stress, soil anaerobic conditions, root
pathogens, soil nematodes, bacterial and fungal cankers, etc. New peach
seedling and clonal rootstocks released in the last 20 years have been
variously reported to be more productive, tolerant of replant sites,
nematodes, Armillaria root rot, crown gall or more winter hardy than
previous utilized rootstocks. However, these rootstocks have had only
limited testing in North America. To determine the merits of these
rootstocks for use under North American conditions a large scale cooperative
regional trial was undertaken. Only 7 of 19 rootstocks were common to all
locations. Moreover, rootstock x site interactions were common indicating
that specific recommendations might need to be made locally rather than
regionally much less nationally. However, some trends were evident in the
performance of the 7 rootstocks (Lovell, Bailey, Tennessee Natural 281-1, GF
305, Higama, Montclar and Guardian (BY520-9)) common to all locations. After
8 years, trees on Guardian and Lovell rootstocks were the largest. Trees on
Guardian, Lovell and Montclar produced the largest yields. However, trees on
Tennessee Natural 281-1 and Bailey had the highest yield efficiency.
Individual fruit size was largest on Bailey and Higama rootstocks. Rootstock
suckering was highest on Guardian rootstock.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 12:27
PM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] grocery store
peaches and nectarines
Hi Dennis,
If you wouldn't mind, what varieties do you grow? Which do you
like best for flavor? For growing? I realize this is site and climate
specific for your orchard but it might be a good snapshot in that
context and useful information for the rest of us. Thanks.
Dave
----- Original Message -----
Sent: 1/23/06 2:06:42 AM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] grocery store
peaches and nectarines
Being a peach grower with
about 1,000 trees, we do things a little differently than the
commercial growers. Peaches grown and shipped commercially to the
grocery stores are picked at first color. That means at the first
sign of that yellowish/red tint, they are ready to pick to be
shipped. They are not picked at the right stage to have any
flavor, but the poor folks that have only purchased peaches at the
grocery store don't know any better. To get the best flavor for
peaches, they should be picked when "firm ripe". "Firm ripe"
means they are not soft yet, but not too hard either. The color
should have a good red tint to it, but not too much red.
They should be "cooled down" at 68 degrees for 24 hours. Then
they should be stored at 34 degrees while waiting to be sold. Can
anyone imagine a commercial grower doing this? Since we grow only
for our own market, this is how we handle our peaches. We have
never been able to meet the demand for our peaches and have always had
to supplement. We purchase our supplements from Eckert's Orchards
in Bellville, IL who grow their peaches the same as we do and pick them
at the same time. Our shipments arrive on Friday morning, having
been picked on Thursday. We store them at 34 degrees and they last
us for a good 7 days. We always sell out just when that next
shipment arrives and have never had a complaint about tasteless
peaches. And we still have a problem meeting demand! It's a
good problem to have.
By the way, 34 degrees is
the optimum temperature for storage of peaches and apples as well as
scion wood. When our new trees arrive to be planted, we keep them
at 34 until they go into the ground, which is within 36 hours.
Apples and peaches stored at 36 degrees will start to break down much
faster than at 34 and at 40 won't last at all. 40 degrees is the
temperature at which bacteria will start to develop and any good health
department would shut anyone down if their refrigerator that held any
food being served to the public was at 40 degrees or
above. If I can locate an article from Fruit Growers News about
the latest storage tests done on peaches I will post it that covers this
exact subject.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2006
11:01 PM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] grocery
store peaches and nectarines
I have always blamed the poor taste and texture of store peaches
and nectarines on early picking as well, but it may be worse than just
that one commercial consideration that accounts for this.
Last summer I was able to tour a test orchard for new and not so
recent but modern commercial cultivars and participated in the
evaluation of about 20 ripe varieties which we picked off the tree. It
wasn't long before I began to notice that what we were tasting were
all very similar to each other and also very much like what I
had tasted from the grocery store. Let me repeat, we were picking
these right off the trees. The only time I tasted anything that was
beginning to be sweet and juicy was when I wandered off to trees
that had most of their fruit on the ground and then, when I would
remark that this one was pretty good, I was told not to pay any
attention to it as it was past. I left the station very
disappointed in what I had exp ected to be a magnificent day of
indulgent peach pleasure, but with my eyes opened to the painful
truth: it is the large, beautiful, firm, red commercial peaches
that are bad, not when they pick them. Stopping at a friend's place on
the way home I had the best peach of the day, by far. His neighbor had
a seedling tree that came from a Reliance pit and the fruit was much
like it - small, yellow, fuzzy, sweet, juicy, with amazing flavor and
aroma, and so soft you couldn't have shipped it across the street. But
then why would you have wanted to?
Dave
MN, zone 4a
----- Original Message -----
Sent: 1/22/06 10:21:57 PM
Subject: [NAFEX] grocery store
peaches and nectarines
On Jan 22, 2006, at 10:37 PM, road's end farm wrote:
On Jan 22, 2006, at 8:46 PM, Spidra Webster
wrote:
For the last several years I've found that
store nectarines are a
better bet than peaches. But the last season or
so nectarines have
seemed just as bad. I hardly got a good
peach this summer but I think
it might be due to the fact that I wasn't
getting out to the Farmer's
Market or gourmet stores enough.
Grocery store peaches are almost always
terrible as they're almost always picked too green. If you wait
till they're close enough to ripe so that they'll develop full
flavor, they're too close to ripe to ship very far.
Many many years ago I did a brief stint
picking peaches in Washington State, while wandering around the
country. We were told that we might as well eat the ripe ones,
they couldn't be shipped anyway. A revelation. Probably one reason
I'm farming today.
--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone
5
All in all, I usually prefer grocery store peaches to grocery
store nectarines. But it's a crap shoot. The best
"peach" I ever had was a nectarine several years ago, and this year
we got a batch of terrific nectarines. We also got some really
excellent peaches form the local produce place, though. Even
the locally grown ones vary a lot. they were only excellent
for a week and a half, both earlier and later they were just
so-so. I'm sure the local farmers grow more than one type, and
I'd guess that only one cultivar was both an excellent cultivar and
also arrived ripe in the store.
Ginda
eastern Mass., zone
6
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