Thursday, May 5, 2016

No Peaches or Nectarines for 2016

It is not hard to guess what is missing from this image, blossoms. Out of almost 250 peach and nectarine trees we counted seven blossoms. Most years we lose buds, blossoms and or developing fruit to spring freezes. A peach orchard can lose a very high percentage of fruit stages and still have an excellent crop.  This year the loss is virtually 100%.   The experts tell us that this year the fruit buds died during the extremely cold weather in February, combined with the warm December and January.

We are still renovating our peach and nectarine orchard and replaced sixty trees this spring including the addition of a white peach and a white nectarine.  We will also take the time to cut back the mature peach and nectarine trees to get them in good shape for next season.  

We still expect a plum crop this season.  The plums are also a stone fruit but it looks like they are just slightly hardier.