North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[<dmnorton@royaloakfarmorchard.com>]

Believe it or not, we just removed all of our peach trees!  The last 4 winters have seen temps well below zero, sometimes as low as 20 below, that literally froze our trees.  Each winter over the past 4 we have lost an estimated 25% of our trees and decided that this current cycle of colder winters were just too cold to try and grow peaches here in a high density orchard.  We do have some PF 24's that are planted next to the house that are still doing well and are in full bloom now.  There are about 6 of them, but we originally had 8 planted in 1995.

 

Previous to that, back in 1992, we planted 600 trees that produced fruit through 2006.  They began their decline in 2004 and we finally removed them in '06.  They were predominately Madison, Red Haven and Reliance and saw relatively mild winters up until 2004.  They produced tremendously well for 10 years!   The rows ran East/West and had a full southern exposure since no other trees were south of them.  Our trees we just removed were in our North orchard and ran north south with no wind break to the north.  That was probably the wrong orientation for them and I would not plant peaches this far north again unless the rows ran east west due to our experiences with them.  Hope this helps!

 

 

Dennis Norton
Royal Oak Farm Orchard
Office (815) 648-4467
Mobile (815) 228-2174
Fax (609) 228-2174
http://www.royaloakfarmorchard.com
http://www.theorchardkeeper.blogspot.com
http://www.revivalhymn.com

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

From: Anthony Curcio

To: 'nafex@lists.ibiblio.org'

Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 10:03 AM

Subject: [NAFEX] Hardy Peach Question / Dennis Norton ?? - Anthony Curcio

I know it is a bit late but we just realized we did not order any peach trees. Does anyone have input for hardy peaches ? Dennis I noticed Royal Oak is in Harvard, we are in Elizabeth about 45 min. due west. Can you tell us what peaches have performed best for you ? Do you have trees available or a source to offer ?

Thank you, Anthony z4b

 

Anthony P. Curcio
CEO
VasSol, Inc.
833 W. Jackson 8flr.
Chicago, IL 60607
Phone- 312-601-4431
Fax - 312-601-4451