Kansas has a pretty variable climate in terms of temps, humidity, and rainfall. In zone 5, you must be somewhat close to the NE border.

I can tell you what I've experienced further south in zone 6 about 4 mi. from the MO border with lots of rain and humidity.

Peaches - pretty much any Midwest variety does well. They all require sprays and will not tolerate water-logged soils in the least.

Plums - I've given up on Jap/hybrid plums. The ones I've tried bloom too early and the frost gets them. There are some high quality later blooming hybrids (i.e. Emerald Beauty) but I haven't tried them. I plan to pull out 3 Euro plums before next Spring due to poor flavor (Early Italian, President, French Petite). I still have several of the Gage type plums (and a few others) and am waiting to see how they taste and perform. Euro plums bloom after peaches, so they are generally safe from frost kill.

Pears - these are the easiest to grow and require the least care. I would recommend fireblight resistant varieties. There are many to choose from, Harrow Delight, Harrow Sweet, Green Jade, Potomac, etc. They are one of the few fruits you can actually get some crop from without any sprays.

Apples - Like peaches and plums, require sprays. Apples are so diverse in flavor, who knows what you favor. Fireblight typically isn't as much of a problem in apples as in pears, but it can be a problem.

I recommend planting peaches on full vigor rootstocks. Likewise with pears and plums. They are not hard to keep contained with pruning, and standard rootstocks are typically more forgiving of less than optimum management than dwarfs.

Thank you that is very usefull info. Im in the kansas city area. So you haven't had any luck with japanese plum and hybrids? So when it comes to peaches basicaly any varity offered here will work. thank you agian

You're a little closer than I thought. Perhaps you're using the old National Arboretum zone map. I think all the newer maps place KC in zone 6.

I've had real problems with apricots and Japanese hybrid plums. I believe K-State Ext. reports apricots only fruit one in five. My Jap. type plums bloomed the same time as the apricots. As I mentioned there are some later blooming Jap. types. Shiro is supposed to do well, but the consensus on this forum is the fruit is pretty marginal (flavor-wise) so I've never been interested in growing it. Emerald Beaut is supposed to be excellent and a late bloomer, but like I said I've never tried it either.

My site seems to run a bit warmer during winter, than surrounding areas. An old zone map shows a small circle of zone 6 completely surrounded by zone 5. I'm in that little zone 6 circle. The new zone maps now show everything around as zone 6. The warmness seems to tease blooms out a little earlier than some surrounding sites, so it's possible you may not have quite as severe a problem as I. But I still wouldn't count on dependable crops from most Jap. type plums.

Peaches are my strongest interest. You can look at the 2010 peach report for my favorites. I'd recommend picking an early variety, midseason, and late, if you want to have peaches all season long. My pics would be PF1, Redhaven, Coralstar and Autumnstar. If you can't get all those from one nursery, don't sweat it, just substitute another Midwest variety from what the nursery offers. I'm thinking Adams County Nursery has most of those varieties.

By the way, when I say Midwest peach varieties, I'm using that term very loosely. Anything developed or tested proven in NJ would qualify as a Midwest variety in my mind. Likewise pretty much anything developed in Ontario will work in the Midwest. They can be recogized with the letters Har somewhere in the name (named after the Harrow breeding program.) Of course any peaches developed in Michigan would probably work. This includes the Haven series (anything with Haven in the name). Paul Friday's releases, which have the letters PF in the name (very creative), and Fruit Acres releases, which have the word "star" somewhere in the name.

What you really want to avoid starting out are California varieties, and varieties from the southern states (like Georgia). There are exceptions to this of course, you just have to be pretty careful, and willing to accept you may be pulling those trees out.

I'm in the horticulture program at jccc and they still classify kansas city as zone 5. There are some different opinions of what trees to use here in kc. One of my professors recommended stark bros in lincoln missouri. I haven't ever ordered from them before cuz i havent had an orchard before and am still learning so....i was actually thinking of using some european plums instead of asian plums heard they have better flavor and easier hear in kansas. Have you ever heard of the heirloom Kingston black variety for midwest ciders and what do you think? Thanks for the cultvars for peaches i will look into those. Can you plant one of each season and still get pollination or so you need multiples of each for peaches? Is your interest in peaches personal food or commercial?

JCCC is using dated info. regarding zone. Zone 5 has to average minus 10-20F for the winter low, and I don't believe any part of KC has hit minus 10F in at least the last 5 years (although I think we got close this last winter).

I consider Stark Bros a mediocre nursery. They're OK, but they have sort of turned into a quasi mass market nursery, like Gurneys/Henry Fields. They don't have the selection of some of the newer promising cultivars compared to Adams County. Also Adams has a better Watchdog rating than Stark's.

For some of the cheapest prices with good quality stock, you might consider VanWell. Don't be put off they are on the West Coast. They handle a lot of Midwest varieties.

Brandon keeps an updated list of nurseries w/ their Watchdog ratings. You can probably find it pretty easy in the archives.

For plums, I like Euros better than Asians. As I mentioned Asians bloom too early for me. The disadvantage of Euros is they tend to take longer to bear. Hardiness of either isn't much of an issue where we're at.

I suppose my orchard would be classified as a very small commercial operation. Only one acre. I've been selling some fruit for three years, but this summer was the first time I started selling at roadside and a Farmer's Market. Peaches are the main tree fruit (although sold some pears this year too) but I'd eventually like to start selling plums as a compliment to the peaches.

I don't have much interest in apples other than for personal consumption, so I only have a few trees. There are many folks on this forum who are passionate about apples. You may want to post your question about cider apples on a separate thread, or search the archives for info.

Virtually all peaches are self-fruitful and will work fine as stand alone trees. Some Euro plums are self-fruitful and some not.

I'll reiterate peaches need good drainage. I've seen a lot of dead peach trees in my neighborhood (and contributed my share) due to drainage issues. All new peach trees I plant go into a mound. They do very well when the drainage is good, but languish or die in poorly drained soil. Apples, and especially plums, are a little tougher in this regard.

I think I should mention that although Shiro is no favorite of mine flavor-wise it is highly favored by customers and would be a nice addition to a primarily Euro collection. Supposed to be fairly self-fertile but that would be another issue.

Having said that, I don't think Shiro would be significantly better than other J.plums as far as frost because it flowers at the same time as others- it just seems a shade more hardy.

Must have made a mistake on Shiro bloom time. They are considered somewhat reliable here, so perhaps the blooms are a little less frost sensitive.

A guy I know said he sells the heck out of them at a different Farmer's Market. I just can't get excited about selling plums that are only mediocre.

I have a ton of info on fruit for our area (I'm just west of Olathe KS) - I've been testing over 500 fruit varieties (peaches, apples, pears, plums etc) over the last 12 years at this site. Kingston Black has done quite well with no health issues - we've had deer issues but that's it. If you get a chance to come out when the weather's warmer I'd be happy to take you on a tour and you could see first hand what grows well here. I have notes on each tree. Good growing, Rick Godsil, Wagon Wheel Orchard