Thomis, I'd forgotten you had an earlier post about losing the trees to collar rot. Crown/collar rots are definitely associated with wet heavy soils. Peach trees will die even faster than apple trees under those conditions. I would definitely plant the peaches in mounds for better drainage and to stop the travel of the zoospores, which can't move through mounded soil. In terms of varietal recommendations, I have my own biases, but I'd check out the recent thread - "2010 Peach Report" where you get others favorites as well. Don Yellman, who I haven't heard from in a while, is fairly close to you has recommended Golden Jubilee as one of his favorites. I've seen it listed before as a canner, and it drops fruit, but Don's mentioned several times it's his favorite. Except for maybe Spring frosts, I'd expect you could grow just about any Midwest or Southeast derived peach you wanted in your climate, and perhaps some of the CA peaches Scott mentions too.

There's quite a few nurseries out there and a good many of the best ones are not to far from you. one that comes to mind is Hocking Hills Its up north of you I think, it carries a great many Heirloom apple varieties and even some scion wood for grafting if you want to increase the number of varieties without losing space. Where I'm at in Missouri we have a lot of disease that attacks apples and pears and even our plum trees get hit too. So getting trees that are resistant is a good Idea from the get go. I have two apple trees that are just about the right size to graft they are Gala and Golden delicious neither are resistant, so I have to keep them spraid and even doing that they still showed signs of cedar rust. I would love some cuttings of Liberty or Empire, as they are some what resistant, but I would give my right arm for some cuttings of Lamb Abbey Pearmain, Kidds Orange Red,Calville Blanc D Hiver or Ashmeads Kernel, just to name a few, most of them are not resistant, but I have to spray anyways. I can order and buy cuttings, but I live on a small disability check, so I'm hoping for some kind soul that might share some cuttings for the price of postage. I do have a small grafted apple tree on the way, the cutting came from a old apple tree that got cut down by the road crew, it has some disease resistance and the apples were large, crisp, sweet with good acid and had a wine like after taste. It was a shame that they had to cut it down, it must have been close to 75 years old as it was a full grown tree when I was still a kid some 60 years ago. The apples are a deep red over yellow with some red striping, I managed to get a lot of cuttings at the time they cut it down and gave them all out to people that wanted them. So one person grafted me one of the cuttings on a dwarf root stock. So now I have at least one good tree that has some resistance to fire blight and cedar rust or at least I will when I get it. I have no way of knowing what variety it was as the old couple that own the land died several years ago, but from what I heard the tree may have come from from up north some where, so I'm guessing it might be a heirloom variet of some sort. Well I hope you find what you want, I would go to a local Orchard where they sale apples and talk to them about what you might want they might know where you can get the variety that you want and you could also try some of the apples that they have so you can get a idea of what some of them taste like. George W. Z5-6 Mo.

The FB that I had 2 years ago effected all three of these varieties and I had to do some severe pruining on all 3, but no fb this year. I also moved DRD, so it spent this year acclimating itself to it's new location. I expect the first fruit from it next year. This year was the first year that Cauley and Summer Banana produced fruit. I'm a firm believer that you can't tell a whole lot from the first years' fruit. I don't let my apples carry fruit, until they are at least 5 years old. I learned that from David Vernon, who sold me the trees. All of that aside, both varieties produced a fair amount of fruit. Cauley is very hard, which I like, has a slightly yellow meat and a pleasant spritely taste, which I think will get better over time. It's prococious and I had to support many of the branches. I understand that it can produce fruit that can weigh up to a pound. Summer Banana is a totally diferent apple. It's mainly a tip bearer. The skin is yellow with white flesh that is somewhat bland to my taste. I didn't smell or taste any hint of banana, so i think the name is somewhat deceiving. I wonder, if Winter banana is the same. As I said before, I don't place a whole of value on first year fruits. I chose this tree because of the name and the fact it came from Marion County, here is SC, plus both of these apples have a historical significance. it's interesting to know what people ate here 200+ years ago. If you'll allow me to reminisce, I bought Bevan's Favorite because my grandfather used to have this tree in his backyard. I can remember climbing the tree, when I was a little boy, fighting my cousin for the apples. THEY SURE WERE GOOD.

Hello, My father has a dwarf golden delicious tree (roughly 5 years old) in his backyard that has these weird wet patches on the bark. These wet patches are not covering the entire tree and it seems to be doing fine and starting to flower etc. I tried to troubleshoot Apple tree bark issues but got nowhere. Anyone have any idea what this could be? Thanks!