Reflective sheeting has been used to good effect for cherries, I saw it written up somewhere. Higher brix etc. So I am sure it would also help on peaches. I don't know what the special reflective sheeting they use is made of exactly; one brand is called Extenday. I don't know how much better if any this stuff is than simple white plastic.

My late peaches are all doing very well in terms of flavor - today it is O'Henrys coming in and they are nice. It has been raining here but not as much as during the earlier peaches.

Scott

Harvestman: I've had the Extenday version of this stuff on the floor of my greenhouse the past 5 yrs. Cann't really say whether it has helped any or not since I don't have anything else to compare to. But I've watch the research results and figure it cann't hurt any. I do have the black woven weed barrier underneath. The white would do the job by itself now but it took two yrs under both to do in all the weeds, like bermuda.

Based on my experience, I'd say your flat fruit taste is probably more to do with too much water than with too little light. But that is just a guess. My fruit over watered is awful. Properly watered I'd put it up against anything anywhere.

One other thing I'd say. I prune so that about 40-50% of the ground is sunlite at noon. If there isn't quite a bit of light reaching the ground, the reflective fabric won't help. On the other hand, if your canopy is open, sunny and the fruit is thinned enough; you might not benefit from more light.

The Fruitnut

The early peaches were very good for me. About four bushels on two Redhaven trees and the 2 year old Scarlet pearl was excellent white peach. I was surprised. Lots of cracking but great flavor. I just harvested the JH Hale and they are large and great peach flavor. The Belle of Georgia is now ripe. They are good but I am not thrilled about the flavor after having great peaches. Maybe the belle is over loaded.

Are you a big wine maker since you're worried about brix rather than a balance of flavor in all fruit?
How are you measuring brix? (Just curious, the only brix testers I've seen are very expensive grape aids. I measure balling with my cider cheaply.)

If you're saying they have no flavor what happens if you put them in a heavy syrup? My guess would be they still won't have flavor and will just be sweeter.
I second Fruitnut, I think excessive water effects flavor just as much as lack of sun or leaves effects sugar content.

Fixing sugar content after the fact is easy, add sugar. I highly doubt if any wine taster could tell you added fructose to a fruit wine. You could also add honey to make a mead and any wine taster couldn't put their nose in the air over that since it has to have honey to be mead.

Fixing washed out flavor after the fact is not likely (you could try reduction but that takes forever and risks setting the pectin and causing a cooked flavor).

Harvestman I'm brix Maggot I use K-Mag to sweet up my plants have for years works everytime. Reading link below it give rates per acre my method two application my hand fulls four per plant. In northeast texas rain fall been 41 1/2 inches May June dry July and August. All fruit that I grow is very sweet rain are shine you have the biggest following if use K-Mag I don't use on onions I use Dapp.

Here is a link that might be useful: High dollar crops

I'm with fruitnut and Myk. From my experience, I think it's excessively wet roots that contribute to poor quality fruit, more than lack of sunlight.

Our peach season is done here. Early/mid peaches were very high quality, we had very spaced out, but adequate rains. Redskin started out mealy but ended up very good. We just finished up Georgia Belle which was good.

If it was primarily the water, I wonder then why 8 weeks without mowing wasn't more helpful. My soil drains very well- too well most years. Of course there are so many factors in play. We had a hard frost that damaged a lot of the buds up high on the most vigorous wood. I summer pruned to get a lot of light down low but that could create problems as well on a very wet year. My peach trees are very vigorous.

On the Johnboy the peaches on the very outside of the tree were bigger and had much better quality. The problem is, I can't tell if the peach is good until I bite into it.

Oh well, at least the nectarines are very exciting. They tend to be less vigorous so I wonder if that leads to their higher sugar. In 2 or 3 years I'll have nectarines to get me through almost the whole season.

Next week, I'll be checking some of the peaches at other sites I manage and see of the early and late light my trees miss makes a difference. I have forest trees on every horizon.

In addition, if it's all about water, how come my sister in N. CA (on the coast) can't even properly ripen Japanese plums- guess what- no sugar! Never rains in the summer- just lots of heavy fog. There it has to be either temps or lack of direct sun- I wager it's the combo. That's why we can't ripen peaches after around mid-sept here. Euro plums can continue ripening into late Oct if we don't get hard frost.

Japanese plums require a lot of heat to ripen to high quality. Ditto for peaches. You don't lose your light after mid Sept but you do lose your heat. Euro plums are apparently able to ripen with much less heat. But then Europe, much of it anyway, is a pretty cold place, more like coastal CA. Apples ripen best in the decreasing temp of fall.

Mowing grass does not cut the water use my much or for very long. If it's green, it's using water at the same rate tall or short.

You know there is a solution that would give you control over many of these things. It's one used in Europe for centuries, get a greenhouse. I'm sure there are thousands of rich estates in New England that would have one if they knew what they could grow. I only know one guy on this forum that could make money making it happen.

The Fruitnut

So you're not testing brix? Last year's cider was 13°, there's little room for debate on how much sugar it contained. But that says little about the overall flavor. You taste balances, you test specifics.

If it was sugar alone I'd think you'd be saying they were too sour, given what you've said about your tastes in fruit.

Sprinkle some sugar on one and see if that fixes everything. I bet it doesn't. If adding sugar fixes everything then you know the problem was the sugar conversion alone.
Your tongue doesn't care that much about where the sugar comes from so it's easy to test if brix is the problem without juicing enough for a hydrometer or paying the $50+ for a refractometer.

Get into the blending off all the different compounds and your tongue and nose will start caring. And that's where I think your problem more likely is, a blend of everything.
Like Fruitnut said a greenhouse is the only way you're going to have full control of everything that goes into creating all those different compounds.

I'm pretty sure long grass conserves water, at least that's the claim for keeping your lawn alive during droughts around here.

ya the longer grass acts like a mulch and shades the ground. Longer grass develops longer/deeper roots so it has access to a deeper water supply. The best way to shed water is raised beds/sloped beds and bare ground or plastic covered.

reflective mulches will cool the ground , in the south they plant lettuce on white mulch. Black plastic will raise temps. Think about a freshly seal coated parking lot on a hot day.

To hell with this weather, we are getting pounded here with rain my garden has turned into a rice paddy lol.

Im going to put up a high tunnel next year not for fruit but veggies. Would work well for peaches cherries plums and a lot cheaper.

A high tunnel will help with some fruits. But you need an area without significant frost problems And it won't lenghten your growing season by very much. It is the best choice for certain crops, in certain areas, with limited objectives.

A full greenhouse allows many more crops in more areas. In my climate I'm going from 180 days growing season to 300+ days with temp in the 80s and 90s. In New England you could go from a 140 day season to the equal of the best areas in California where the growing season is 260 days. You could do this with three months in the winter where you only kept the greenhouse above critical mid winter lows around zero F. In spring heat the house only to critical bloom temp. Alternatively if you want citrus, heat to 33F during winter. Heating costs can be greatly reduced following these guidelines.

But back to the light issue. In England they've grown citrus and other fruit in greenhouses for a long time. They have at least as many clouds as New England. And since the greenhouse covering further deceases light compared to outside, I doubt that light is the limiting factor very often. I'm still a big believer in lots of light being good for fruit. That's why I've used the reflective ground cover in my greenhouse since day one, and we have 70-80% ave sunshine yr around. But if nothing else more light will increase yield.

The Fruitnut

Fruitnut- do you use any special colored mulches? I think I can gain 6 weeks on my growing season with a cheap pvc high tunnel, or at LEAST have a friggin growing season. Next year will be my test year and im going to push it. . Wisconsin University in Green Bay is trying to grow veggies year round in a high tunnel and thats in the frozen tundra.Of course, like you said it is limited to some special veggies. You have hit the nail on the head you need some kind of cover to reliably grow many fruits and veggies.

Maybe we can shed some "light" on the subject. The 4 trees here are apple trees that are of course to close together. 3 earliblaze and a giant mac on the right. The mac was loaded with fruit, and dropped most of it just before it was ripe, it ripened later than another mac thats on a small hill in full sun. The fruit on the mac thats in full sun and on a hill is much much better, ripened earlier , didnt drop as bad. The other mac, like hman and his peaches
there is no suger, they are just watery. So after reading all the above I am wondering if I should cut down the 3 earliblaze and focus on the mac (?) The 3 earliblaze are on the south side, and dont produce well. Thoughts?

{{gwi:122822}}

OK Fruitnut, you've convinced me of the utility of greenhouse production and also that temps might be the key issue here. I'm just not a greenhouse type- I like being outside and I hate construction when it doesn't involve dirt.

You are right, however that it might be a good business idea for me- I can always have someone else doing the construction- but I'll have to move to full dwarf rootstocks. Not as much money in sizing stuff up for just 2 years, and pruning would be boring and much too quick.

I completely disaggree with others who say taller grass conserves water- the reason you don't mow grass during drought is the taller the grass the deeper the roots. Taller grass uses more of everything and is more competitive to trees the taller it is. This is how I learned it and how I see it (as in, with my eyes).

Of course a lot of water leads to bigger less flavored fruit, but my peaches have been great on years with lots of precip but normal heat (and more clear days). I'm going to run with Fruitnut on this one, even if he grows his stuff in the never heat deprived Tex.

This has also focused me on the advantage of Euro plums in cooler weather. I actually suggested my sister move to growing them a couple weeks ago- I've known they can sweeten up as the sun cools down here in the northeast. Now I know it even better.

Harvestman: My greenhouse got it's poly in March 2005. I harvested the first Tasty Rich apriums in late April the same yr. Had more fruit than I could eat the first yr. The trees were planted in CA in 2003 and held in 15 gal pots outside in TX while the greenhouse was being built. They were pollinated outside and planted inside in Mar 2005. I think your customers would be pretty impressed with that schedule. Despite a steep learning curve I've had mostly great fruit every yr since.

True your spraying business would be shot. Only one pest problem, spider mites. One spray a yr controls them. But I do summer prune every six wks. And the watering system needs to operate perfectly or you'll be back where you are now.

You can buy many vegetables as good as you can grow. But even in CA I couldn't buy fruit anything like I'm growing now. Some people would pay for that.

The Fruitnut

Joe-

When your done building yours, stop by my house! I'm tempted to try one. Really annoying getting ripe tomatoes in August.

I'd love to build something permanent off my house or attached garage (they face directly south). Only problem i could see is that you would need to insulate the foundation considering the ground can freeze a foot or more down.

Frank- You ever see jrslicks high tunnel threads he posted here ? (here as in this site) He's pulling tons - literally a ton of perfect tomatoes off a 18x45 high tunnel weeks earlier than field grown. Heres that place in GB thats doing a high tunnel. http://undercovergardener.blogspot.com/ A green house would be great but I dont have access to electric and gas -where my garden is.

hman - Heres how I see long grass in wet years. I grew sod for 20 years so while not considering myself an xspurt I have some experience. Long grass has more water holding capacity and shades the ground. I would imagine that in years with excess rain the roots would have no reason to go deeper after water, rather they would be shallower due to the water being on top. Grass can only use up so much water, especially when its cool like this year. Hot dry years they will send roots deeper to find water and will compete with the tree for water. Sounds contradictory but isnt when you think about.

Bare ground will/can shed water (erosion) and will evaporate faster. Dark soil attracts sun.

You could always do a test and find out.

Joe, I have tested it many times, anecdotally- I walk on many lawns that are mowed very low and they are not nearly as well anchored as grass mowed to a higher height- even with the same types of sprinkling systems (most installers use about the same water rates, I believe). This is especially apparent in early spring when a shallow root system is easy to be heaved by the frost of winter and becomes noticably loose after thaw.

When I got into this business I read a lot of old orchard managment books and in hort-school studied lawn maintanance issues, and while the memory can do funny things I'm pretty sure that as grass grows up it grows down- not just for water but also nutrients. The only way you stop this pattern somewhat is if you use excess N and supply plenty of water.

I have also frequently tried to establish trees in meadows mowed only once or twice a year and peaches in particular have a very hard time getting established in this set-up compared to frequently mowed grass. The weed-free mulched rings must be much wider because the tall weeds suck out so much more moisture.

However, I think you make a good point, if there are as few evaporative days as we had in June and July there may not be a whole lot of gain having higher grass, but you have to think that a more extensive root system of grasses would have to slow tree uptake of water to some degree.
All that said, I will admit to being no expert on lawns and welcome any research or anecdotally based contradictions to my thoughtful, but mostly from memory and observation BS.

Oh no doubt about it longer grass has deeper and more dense root system then shorter. Thats not disputable. I was talking about testing bare soil moisture vs grass after a rain. Anecdotally, after a rain the area of sod that we had all ready stripped (bare ground) would be dry on top, while the grass that we were harvesting would be wet. Ask any sod farmer which dries first after a rain the stripped area or the sod area. Its like a sponge when its dry it wicks a lot of moisture but when its soaked it doesnt. Grass in fruit tree rows is probably the worse of both worlds.
God im glad im not sod farming any more.

I tilled a lot of gardens as a side job and I've never noticed noticeably longer roots.
I've never met a grass I couldn't till up and I rarely hit my large cherry roots that went under my garden and have never hit my dwarf/interstem apple roots that have to be into the garden.
In my short attempts at green manure the experience was it doesn't dry out enough in the time available before another rain to till unless it's mowed. And once it is dry enough to till on the surface it takes another 3 days rest to dry out deep enough to go to full depth. 3 days is all it takes with no ground cover.

I don't question that taller grass has deeper roots, that seems pretty well accepted.
I question how much deeper and whether you would lose more water by having ground evaporating instead of grass shading the ground and collecting dew. Short grass allows the ground to evaporate, collects less dew and spends more of everything trying to grow to its full size so it can make seeds.
Of course like everything else, if you don't have dew or rain every few days your results may vary.

All i know about grass is how to kill it! I always keep what lawn i have very short which is what lead to its demise. I prefer flowers to lawn anyday :)

Joe-

YES... I read that thread about a week ago! Isn't it amazing what a few mil of plastic will do? I find that amazing.

I actually got interested from what they are doing in Michigan with high tunnel cherries and in the UK where they do the same...

Check out what the Brits are doing.
http://haygrovetunnels.blogspot.com/

In the end, what we really need is a simple experiment of same variety peach trees growing in the same soil in good peach growing country in the humid part of the country, say New Jersey. Grow them in sod and experiment with letting the sod go unmowed from about mid-spring for half the trees. After about 3 seasons you'd probably have a good idea how this would affect brix- especially if you had a particularly wet season in the mix.

My own experiment this season had no control except memory of previous seasons but I'm sure that not mowing was of little advantage so maybe you guys win this argument based on that alone.

I guess if leaving grass unmowed could serve the purpose I had in mind, we all would know about it because it's such an obvious solution and would be discovered by accident even if for some reason no one thought of it.

Now as far as too much water affecting brix (even if that wasn't the essential problem this year)- do you think plastic sheeting to deflect rain water might be helpful on wet years? You'd have to remove the sheeting intermittantly to assure a good gas exchange and discourage excessively shallow rooting and winter kill but you could certainly keep the ground dryer this way.

Frank thanks for the link, pretty cool!

Too much water has to affect fruit quality. We got 4-6 inches of rain in the past 2.5 days. I picked a nice ripe tomato and gave to my wife (I dont eat raw tomatoes) she said the flavor was wiped out. Anecdotal yes, but too much water at the wrong time must have an effect on taste.

Ya plastic would keep it dryer, Im looking at growing tomatoes on raised plastic covered beds w/drip underneath like you see on commercial farms. For some reason they say you dont want water sitting on plastic. Not sure why, maybe standing water = fungus & insects, but plan to slope my beds (they say 1.5 inch slope) I digress.. I would think you would only need plastic when the peaches are ripening right? At least for moisture control, You could always poke small holes in the plastic so you get some water to the tree an avoid standing water in spots.

I think I will plant my next batch of trees on a hump, I think most orchards do that don they? grass aisles and a 6 foot or so mound that they keep sprayed out. Mulch in dry years and wet years it will drain better or use with plastic. Every thing that was in a raised bed (garden) did very good this year.

I am having the opposite problem here in CTex. No rain and too much sun. Has anyone grown fruit under shade cloth cover? I am having problems this year that I have not ever had before. Sun burn marks on almost every tree trunk on the west side, lots of shriveled and sun burned fruit and most suprising of all I am wathching a citrus tree literally burn up day by day. The tree was planted on a western wall to help with winter temps and I think the reflected radiating heat off that wall is too much. I covered it with a shade cloth to save it but I'm wondering if the fruit will be able to ripen properly? My plan is to keep the cloth in place only as long as the heat lasts and remove it once the temps lower a bit this fall. I think this will work but Im wondering if keeping it covered is going to affect the fruit quality? Does anyone know?

Scape

If you're worried about Brix again, the first step would be to get a tester and take an actual reading and start comparing those from year to year.
Make 3 cups of instant coffee, in one put 1/2 tsp of coffee, another 1 tsp, the last 2 tsp, put the same amount of sugar in each. Which one tastes sweeter?
You're trying to measure a 1MPH difference without a speedometer and all kinds of things flying by your window throwing your perception off.

Site to site I think you'd have to use a greenhouse to get results that meant anything. Too many variables otherwise. I was in a downpour at Walmart 1/2mi away and got home to a dry garden (relatively speaking, it didn't ever really get dry this year, watered 1 new tree, haven't picked the hose up for the garden at all).

Plastic would most definitely work to keep water out. I used to cover my garden in February when I was doing the hoop house thing so I could get it tilled (besides being too much work for too little reward it got my neighbors bugging me to till their gardens when they were way too wet).
I don't know if you'd have to remove it for airflow. You'll have to stake it down and depending on the size wind will still get under it and pull the stakes (I weighted mine down with cinderblocks and they'd get rolled in some winds).