North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Mark Angermayer" <hangermayer@isp.com>]



Hi Alan,

 

Hope your back gets to feeling better.  Remember to stretch a couple times a day (touch your toes) after your back starts feeling better.

 

I'm still new at this, but I'm discovering (and also partly a theory) that extreme early ripening, or late ripening cultivars are hard to maintain a standard of quality.  Isn't that true with apples?  I know people may say they have a favorite early summer apple, but most people say if you want the best apples, wait till the real apple season begins in late fall.  For blackberries, early varieties typically aren't as good.  The brix on Arapaho is considerably less than later blackberries, and the flavor is substandard.  Likewise, although I haven't tried them, the new thornless release Nachez, which is supposed to be a replacement for Arapaho, has a low brix, and is reported to have similar flavor to that of Arapaho.

 

So my current thought is, "why try to fight it."  Why not simply plant cultivars that mature in their "normal" season, and if one desires fresh fruit all summer, plant different types of fruit. 

 

Strawberries first, then cherries and apricots, then peaches and plums, lastly apples and pears.  I've obviously left a lot of fruits out, to choose from, but you get the idea.

 

Saying all that, I'm not totally putting it into practice.  I had PF1 for the first time this year, and was surprised by the quality.  It ripens -30, but I left it on the tree much longer, probably to about -20.  It produced a lot of 3" fruit, full red, with a great sweet peach taste.  The only drawback is that, it is a cling peach.

 

Additionally, I plan to order an Autumnstar for this spring.  I've heard this is one of the best late peaches.  I've read it ripens +35, or +45.  I'm inclined to believe the +35. 

 

So I guess I'm not following my advice after all.

 

Mark

KS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Alan Haigh

To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 10:58 AM

Subject: [NAFEX] late peaches

I'm crippled at the moment with an aching back- out for the first time in several years and right before a snowstorm so there's not a lot to do but wait a few more days for the muscles to un-freeze.  It makes me wish there was more going on on the list just to kill time on something that interests me.  Guess I'll just throw a topic out there- late peaches.

 

Around southeastern NY Z6 most of the peach crop has been harvested by about Sept. 10 with the last of the Elbertas or similar timed varieties.  If conditions are right though, which has been the case in recent seasons, another crop is possible from the next latest cultivars which can crop peaches for another 10 days or so.  If these peaches are picked hard-ripe and stored in the fridge you can be eating delicious tree-ripe peaches for an additional 2 or 3 weeks by pulling them out of the fridge and softening them at room temp as you need them.  Later peaches seem to store better.

 

The 2 varieties I grow for this purpose are Autumn Glo and Encore.  I harvested a lot of Encores for the first time this year because I have long been satisfied with Aut. Glo which seems to produce a much larger peach and is more favored by commercial growers around here. 

 

Judging from my first sampling of Encore I think I'm going to prefer it.  It seems to be a richer and more flavorful peach although both types are very good.  I also suspect Encore will be less prone to brown rot for which A G is a real magnet because the Encore is more acidic with more concentrated sugars (less watery).  Anyone out there with experience with these or other similarly timed peaches? 

---

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