Thanks Don for all your hard work. Let me know if you find a supplier for small quantities of a dormancy spray. Armobreak was described on the IAAS website as a "Eco-friendly solution to overcome deficient growing conditions for deciduous fruit". Sounds like it would work. One of the lawyers in a local rose club earned his applicator license. He blasted his roses every Sunday morning, joking "First you spray, then you pray." Quality safety equipment is a must with the high powered chemical combination sprays some rose exhibitors use. Below is a thread from Gardenweb regarding chill factor that seems to have been deleted. It gave me the idea for Dormex. Cheating for chill http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/fruit/msg1203412322352.html?11 Posted by JoeReal Ca z9/SS z14 (My Page) on Tue, Dec 6, 05 at 10:46 You can spray with Dormex at the proper time, it can give you up to 750 chilling hours equivalent. Or you can spray daily from mid winter to spring, with water from your hose at the coldest time of the day, like starting 6:00-7:00 am. This is supposed to "wash-off" the inhibitors that prevents premature blooming, but I haven't really tried this one. This is one of the experiments I am going to try. Or you can use my portable flodable ice box. I have successfully bloomed and fruited a high chill colonade apple with this one. Ideal for short columnar plants. Look at My Page in this forum. Posted by fruitnut z7,4500ft SW TX (My Page) on Tue, Dec 6, 05 at 13:28 Short of using Dormex, there is not anything easy that will make much difference. Ice will have little to no effect. Remember that only temp between 34-54F are effective, with 37-48F fully effective. So ice at 32F is too cold and cann't easily be applied to the buds where cooling is needed. Evaporative cooling, such as spraying the trees with water when temp is above 48F, can be effective. To work you must have a low dew point, ie, dry air. It would be most effective on clear, dry, sunny afternoons. This is what I'm doing in my greenhouse. But unlike outside, I can cool the air passing thru the house. Outside you would have to wet the trees every 5-10 minutes. In my greenhouse, I can lower the afternoon temp by 10-12F below the outside temp by using the evaporative cooling system. For the 21 day period Nov 15 thru Dec 5, I've accumulated 415 Utah chill hrs; an ave of ~20hr per day. To do this required maintaining a minimum night temp of 37F using the greenhouse heater. Outside temp have ranged from ~20F to ~70F. Outside chill hrs are probably 100 to 160 Utah hrs but are very hard to estimate because the temperature has been swinging wildly from too warm to too cold. If your nights are too cold, which I doubt is your problem, there is very little you can do about it short of an elaborate shelter and heater. My greenhouse with double inflated poly and a shade cloth over the plants provides no more than 1-2F temp rise above ambient ouside temp unless I use the heater. In short, if you really need more chilling try Dormex. The Fruitnut Posted by JoeReal Ca z9/SS z14 (My Page) on Tue, Dec 6, 05 at 14:51 Ice can be effective and it works really well if you know the mechanics of how it is done, it is all in the Physics. If you apply ice to be in contact jaggedly at the surface, it doesn't mean that the surface will have ice temperature most especially if the air temperature is well above freezing point of water. There are air spaces in between the ice cubes. As the ice receives heat from the air or radiation or in contact, it melts due to latent heat of fusion but it cools the air surrounding it. Thus the surface will never be colder than 32 deg F, given the context that you are using it. It is in fact the cooled air that will cool the enclosed branches, not much the contact points of ice. That cool air within the enclosed ice box, I have measured is about 36-38 deg F when incoming air temperature is 45 deg F. As the air in my foldable ice box gets cooled down, they drain slowly (gets heavier and moisture laded from ice) and being replenished by the warm air at the top which in turn cools down slowly, creating ambient environment surrounding the enclosed tree branches to the perfect range for accumulating chilling hours. We measured this in my kid's science project. Physics is really great. Posted by kuffelcreek z9 So. Calif. (My Page) on Tue, Dec 6, 05 at 16:34 High-chill apples can easily be induced to fruit in almost any climate by stripping the leaves off by early spring. Gary Matsuoka at Laguna Hills nursery has done this for years, as have other CRFG members in Orange County (250 chill hours). Apples are grown in many tropical climates this way, including Nicaragua, Honduras, Thailand, and Indonesia. I do not know if it will work with other stone fruits (it doesn't work on peaches). Another study cites that wetting the tree often through winter causes the growth inhibitors to break down. Here is a link that might be useful: Laguna Hills Nursery, Apples

John, It's just not worth it to me to let them fruit on the off chance I might get something good. It's not a shortage of seedlings, but that any seedlings you want to save take some space and effort to cultivate. At a minimum you have to mow and mulch them (or pull the grass around them). My point about the failure of seedling peaches was not directed at what you are doing, rather the common idea that one can "save money" by planting a peach pit instead of buying a tree. As I alluded above, almost all the "cost" in growing fruit is the time, care, land, etc. The actual cost of the tree is almost nothing in comparison. I would somewhat disagree with your dichotomy of "home grown" and "marketable". I know I may get some howls of protest on a forum like this, but I think what is marketable is largely what the home grower wants. Certainly there are a few examples of fruit breeders ruining a fruit for the sake of marketability. Red Delicious is probably the clearest example. But there are many more cases where breeders give the public (including backyard growers) exactly what they want in terms of flavor-Fuji, Honeycrisp, Goldrush, etc. (I won't deny there were good apples that fell out of favor because they were ugly or didn't store well. I'm just saying that modern breeders have produced some pretty good stuff for backyard growers.) Consider your peach for a moment. Heavy fuzz, thick and leathery skin are pretty big negatives for eating quality. Even small size is somewhat of a negative. I'd much rather eat a large sweet juicy peach that I can easily get a mouthful of fruit, rather than expend the effort of peeling several peaches to get a decent amount of fruit (although I admit I peel any fruit I eat because I don't like skin, but most people don't peel). I'm certain your experience with mealy, non-flavored store-bought peaches has to do with cultural and storage practices not with the varieties. I've been giving out free samples when I sell my peaches (all commercial varieties). It's fun to see people's expression when they try one. It's like they've never had a peach before. Most of the difference is when they are picked. Pick any peach two weeks early and it's going to taste like garbage. I'm still wondering why so many KS growers complained of low success of seedling peaches. Their standards for appearance must not have been that high in 1899. I can't help but think a large percentage turned out like the peaches my wife brought home. That peach tree almost certainly was a seedling from a cultivated variety since there are no natural peach trees around here. Maybe success with peach seedlings has to do with the variety planted, with some varieties giving better quality seedlings than others.

Below 45 model: 566 Between 45 and 32 model: 545 Utah model: 522 And, you can probably add about 20 more ch to my equation, as I was late in getting my weather station up and online. Carolyn is describing my situation exactly. My pluots are very late to blossom. All pears are still dormant, but I do finally see a couple of leaves starting to push out this week on a couple of my earlier pears. My Peacotum has only now pushed out 2 blossoms. But, good new for my Minnie Royal and Royal Lee, they are better synced, just took two weeks for the Minnie Royal to really open up the blossoms, and some of the earliest Royal Lee blossoms are turning into little cherries. So, I should have my first decent crop of Minnie Royal/Royal Lee cherries this year. I will be building a netting cage for both of them this year, and am taking extensive measures to keep snails out of my trees this year. They were worse than the birds for ruining my stone fruit. I also had quite a few blossoms on both my pleurries I planted in January, but the danged Burgundy plum was much slower to wake up, so no significant cross pollination occurred, so highly unlikely I'll get any pleurries this year, so disappointed. They are interesting looking trees, though. the leaves are very unique. Patty S.

I am back. Hi Macmanmatty2, you said you have 1 150 chill hours. You also said you live in Port st joe, Florida, U.S.A. Your chilling accumulation using this method looks too big in my opinion. Your cordinates in Port st joe, Florida, U.S.A. is 29,80 N and 85,29 W. Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A. cordinates are 30,27 N and 84,16 W. So your location is southwest from Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A. I counted Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A. year 2008 chilling units and it is not as high as you posted. I got Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A. 778 chill hours for year 2008. You said 1 150 chill hours. 372 Chill hours less than your number. May i ask you where you got your number or what you counted? Are you sure you counted it right way? Also if i think you are more southwesterly than Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A. you might have even less chill hours than that of 778 chill hours of Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A. 778 Chill hours in Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.A. is much closer your should be 700-500 chill hours than your 1 150 chill hours. I also counted following surrounding places in Florida and got following chilling hours using this method : Aplachicola, Florida, U.S.A. 767 Chipley, Florida, U.S.A. 962 De Funiak Spring, Florida, U.S.A. 934 Madison, Florida, U.S.A. 800 Mayo, Florida, U.S.A. 750 Perry, Florida, U.S.A. 600 Quincy 3 ssw, Florida, U.S.A. 873 That was the list. None of those places have 1 150 chill hours and none reached 1 000 chill hours. Aplachicola, Florida, U.S.A. is southeastern from your location having 767 chill hours. So you probably have something between those 2 places, between 778 chill hours and 767 chill hours. So about 700 chill hours, not 1 150 chill hours you got. What is the discrepancy here? Those 2 numbers are quite close to your should be around number. Any idea? No need to feel guilty any way, you may have just made an mistake, well you can learn about those.