North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Alan Haigh <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

Ginda's remark about the best peach she's ever eaten being a nectarine has some resonance with me.  I love nectarines but when I started growing fruit here there were very few varieties that were said to do reasonably well in the northeast (NY zone 6ish).  I tried a couple, and while I was able to get some amazingly intensely flavored fruit it tended to be highly cracked, prone to rotting and the ugliest things in the orchard besides plum curculio.

 

Because of the amazing efficacy of SI fungicides like Indar, I decided a few years ago to give nectarines another try.  Last year I harvested my first uncracked nectarines from a Summer Beut nectarine tree and they were uncracked after a very wet growing season.  They are a truly wonderful fruit, much more than just a fuzzless peach.  Has anyone else out there been experimenting with nectarines in humid climates?  I'm curious about the Zeiger Red Gold variety.  It is supposed to resist cracking.

 

Another surprisingly good stone fruit I tasted for the first time last year was the Ernie's Choice peach- It is nearly fuzzless and has wonderful flavor.  The fruit I harvested was from a nursery tree that didn't get any fungicide either.  I moved the tree from my nursery into my personal orchard.  I have since learned that this one is widely praised for its quality by fruit growing hobbyists on the internet.