North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Alan Haigh <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

,Rivka writes,  "I've grown a whole lot of quality vegetables on what's not
supposed to be good vegetable ground; and some very nice-flavored peaches
and plums on what's not supposed to be good stone fruit ground."

The requirement of good drainage variation between plums on,say, myro, and
peaches on any of their common rootstocks is as varied as possible in the
realm of popular fruits.  Myro not only does relatively well in poorly
drained soils, but, anecdotally, I have found that plums and only plums of
common fruits do not lose brix when produced in relatively wet soil.

In my experience and according to the literature, peaches are the opposite
of plums in this regard and, even in average textured soil, live longer
when grown on berms.  In wet locations I can always grow them successfully
as long as I create mounds high enough to assure drainage, much like
blueberries can grow in a marsh on the raised soil formations they seem to
thrive on.

I manage over 100 mostly non-commercial orchards in a wide range of soil
types and it seems that the highest quality fruit comes from the sandiest
soils.  Quick drainage and a moderate amount of water stress seems to send
the carbohydrates to fruit at the expense of vegetative growth.  Wine
growers are intensely aware of this association because they are focused on
brix.  Many fruit growers aren't so focused on this because customers judge
the purchase so much on appearance.  Sometimes practices and soils that
encourage high brix also discourage large sized fruit.