Peaches for WI: Anyone tasted Gloria?
fruitnut Z7 4500ft SW TX
9 years ago
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franktank232
9 years agofruitnut Z7 4500ft SW TX
9 years agoRelated Discussions
Last try peach. Contender or Reliance?
Comments (9)Wind is probably not any bigger issue in WI than here in KS, and peaches are successfully grown here. The key is to prune the trees thin. You want to reduce the amount sail the wind grabs and uses to pull the tree over. I think you'll get more fruit with less trouble with aggressive pruning vs. trying to train the peach to an espalier on a dwarf rootstock. I'm not even sure some of the new dwarf rootstocks for peaches are hardy to zone 4 (They may be, but you'd want to check first.) As far as taste, I've grown Reliance and it didn't stack up to other varieties I've grown, so I pulled it out. PF 24C is supposed to be as cold hardy as Reliance with better flavor. Lastly, it shouldn't take 3 years to get your first peach. Peaches fruit on 1 yr. wood. Mulch the trees liberally with grass clippings and leaves (and water when needed) and you should get enough growth the first season to produce 25-50 peaches the next. I think if the your winters don't freeze them out, you should be tasting your next home grown peaches in 2012....See MoreHelp with peach selections
Comments (45)I have gotten some pretty big trees from Cummins. But maybe it was just what I was ordering (French cider apples which were not selling very well I expect). Even the smallest trees were bigger than 12-24"ers. Trees of Antiquity I would agree is the very best. MHG, here is a picture of some covered figs that I took a year ago: I use a stapler to "stitch" together the sheets and I use ground staples to firmly attach it to the ground (a staple every 6" to 1' or so around the bottom). The rope cinch on the outside makes sure the cover will stay on in high winds. You can't see but inside the cover I use rope to pull the limbs in to allow a smaller cover. It took me a couple hours to make this cover and it takes 20 minutes to put it on and 20 minutes to take it off. It probably cost me about $50 worth of insulation; it has lasted four years and looks to be able to make it to about ten. I bought a new roll this winter from a guy on eBay selling slightly dented rolls for half price -- worked out great. All that said, if I lived in your climate I would probably just grow hardy varieties of peaches. Scott...See MoreBest tasting peach (tree) for home garden
Comments (38)The McKay peach seems to be prone to bacterial spot. It had lesions on the trunk in spring 2012 and I had to cut it back to about 4' high. Last summer, every leaf developed terrible shot-holes, turned red, and eventually fell off. I sprayed copper while it was dormant this spring, and haven't seen any signs of disease so far. It just leafed out and bloomed at the same time as my apple trees (it's on the north side of my house, and was covered 3.5' deep in snow all winter). The weaker growth was killed by the drying winter winds, but flower buds survived on the remaining branch. Our winter low was only -10 F, though. I'm worried about this wet spring. I should have planted it in a 6' wide, 1' tall mound (or raised bed) since I have clay loam soil. I'm seriously considering digging it up and replanting it, perhaps this fall. The McKay peach is from WI, but from an hour north of Madison, WI. They've got sandy soil, and we have clay. I hope it pulls through the summer!...See MoreQuestions about dwarf peach
Comments (10)For nectarines I would suggest an earlier variety which are less subject to cracking and easier to protect from brown rot, if only because of the shorter growing season. I like Eastern Glow, but it is not available from ACN this season. My rep there suggests Avalon as a sub. Nectarines are tougher to grow than peaches but so worth it. There are advantages to peaches that have a long picking period. A good early mid-season that has about a 3-week season for our area is is Jonboy. In a pot, Redhaven would probably be about as good. Gloria is a low-acid peach, as I recall and I'm not crazy about fruit without ample acid with that sugar. Make sure they don't tout Avalon as a low acid variety if you now what I'm talking about and agree. Earnie's choice has the acid but a short picking window. It even wins taste tests on the west coast. Madison has been a standard later peach in my nursery for a long time because of very good quality and a very long picking season as well as for its frost hardy buds, but in my own orchard I prefer the quality of Messina. I have so many different peaches that a long picking window is not really important to me. Encore is my standard late and I'm in the process of evaluating best early peaches- I'm leaning towards Desiree after being dissatisfied with a couple of others when I needed to replace Harrow Diamond in this category. In the end, there are so many great peaches that it is difficult to choose. New ones come out so quickly that I can't even begin to keep up with them all. If whatever you choose is known as a high quality peach I'm sure you will be more than happy with it....See Moreolpea
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