I wouldn't worry about it too much. They may have come from a nursery which they already had a decent amount of chill hours from up north. If they are appropriate for your zone, it'll even out with time. Since they are new plantings, you should pick off any fruit while immature to focus energy on tree growth.

Gary

Austin,
My plums,nectarines,pears,peaches and blue berries always
bloom and put out new growth this time of year.
Like Gary said do not be concern.

Felix

i just picked a cup of (green) blueberries. tossed 'em in the compost. strip off new leaves, and pop off any fruits.

read here:
http://www.davewilson.com/homegrown/gardencompass/gc14_jan_07.html

actually, read the whole darn site. i've never read so much contrarian good sense about fruit trees.

on a related note -- i'm doing some reading on tropical apples. one site lists anna & dorsette & tropic sweet as 400 hrs... then i go to ECHO (which is, hands down, the most reliable and smartest place that's actively engaged in testing & developing crops for the 20/20 zone) -- and they list the chill hours as "50-150". then say that even higher chill apples can be grown, if you manually strip the leaves...

so, to say that chill-hours are complex and unreliable (as dave wilson does) is an understatement...

Ache, Dave Wilson's site is awesome, I agree! I learn a lot every time I visit. I have many trees from that nursery, sold through Bay Laurel.

I always strip the leaves off my Apples/Peaches/Pears/Plums, since we seldom have even 100 chill hours. Apples are easy to grow, except for squirrel predation issues. My Apple trees are all in contaners, and are heavy, reliable producers.

I've toyed with the idea of making a cold-box filled with ice to put around my dwarf Peach trees, to get the the correct chilling. But, they still manage to produce.

Lisa

Would you strip your leaves off of blackberries and blueberries too? When do I let the leaves grow, February maybe? I don't plan on lettting the trees fruit this year, but I had planned on letting them set and develop leaves. Advice please!

blueberries will drop their leaves late in winter, really right before they set fruit. (this is my first year with bb, but that's what i've read.)

i'm interested to hear what others have to say re brambles. tony_k -- if you're reading this, is it normal that the tony raspberry has dropped all it leaves? should i lay off watering it?

lisa... hmmm... think about 3-4 large styro coolers ($3-4 each). cut the bottoms of all but one. slide them around the peach tree, fill with 3 or 4 bags of ice, then flip the last, whole cooler over the top. it'd work.

That 400 chill hours listed for those apples were erroneous, as Golden Dorsett originated and produced in the Bahamas, so it must be a misprint. The 50-150 is right. Even northern apples are supposed to produce as low chill if leaf stripping is done, according to what you can find on the web. I have 4 northern varieties I'm trying it with, Stayman winesap, fuji, gala and red delicious. Waiting until the trees attain size before allowing fruit. How the fruit stands up to fungus and insects will be another concern.

Austin, I'd recommend not stripping the leaves and letting nature take its course, unless they haven't dropped their leaves by March. You could try some both ways to see if there's a difference.

Gary