Thanks for your "Peachy" advice. Pretty much what I was looking for.


"sue and dave" wrote in message
...

"AutoTracer" wrote in message
ink.net...
Chill requirements? Are you saying that some cultivars may require
freezing
weather to get synched with the season. We had no freezing weather at
all
this year just lots of rain. I know some seeds like to be frozen for a
while but a tree?

Chill requirement does not mean " freezing". Can you Google on " peach
tree chill requirements" ?? Chill hours are usually below 45 F.
Requirements vary all over the map, wholesalers sell all over the map.

I was going on the assumption that local nursuries generally sell
varieties
suited to the local conditions. We have lots of microclimates but the
nursury and myself should have similar winter conditions. I should look
into where the tree was originally propagated it may be from the central
valley (fresno area) where it gets a bit colder at night in the winter
but
is generally hotter in the summer. I think I still have the tree tags.

Your tree is grafted onto a rootstock. Definitely ask your nursery where
the tree came from. If they bought the tree in a wholesale transaction
from an inland purveyor, most likely the chill requirement was met in the
winter before you purchased.

"A bit colder at night" could make all the difference between enough
chill
hours and not enough. Even when dealing with low-chill requirement fruit
trees, placement within a microclimate could be important... if your peach
is in a half-barrel on concrete or blacktop, or sited close to your
house,
the night time temps could be significantly warmer than on grass, away
from the building footprint and thermal shadow.


Since plants like this sell much better when in flower, I'm sure the
nursury
had some sort of trick they pull just before putting them out for
display.
It was afterall sold in a 10gal pot and now it is in a much larger
container.

Well, believe as you like, no skin off my teeth, but there isn't much "
magic" a nursery can do ( beyond refrigeration for the winter) to make
a
peach tree flower if the flower buds weren't formed during the previous
season's growth and hardened during dormamcy. No fruiting spurs=no
buds=no
flowers.

The other question I posed still stands.

There is a good chance your peach put all its resources last year into
ripening a heavy fruit load after transplanting and had nothing left to
create new fruiting spurs ( ie-- "new growth")

you did say

Oh well, This would not be the first plant to skip a year of flowering
after
coming in from a greenhouse lifestyle. A year of non fruiting will give
it
a chance to increase the canopy which didn't seem to increase at all last
year.

Fruiting trees like peaches (and pears, plums, apples) don't live a "
greenhouse lifestyle", they need real world conditions, including
adequate
dormancy, pruning to enhance productive growth, thinning of crop yields
to ensure resources for the following years crop.

I thinks its great you have a specimen you can watch and learn from . Just
be patient and do the learning, asking, experimenting.

Sue