I planted one last year. It has grown to about 8 ft. I just checked it and it bloomed today. It does seem to have a fair amount of flower buds. It is the first peach/nectarine in the ground to bloom. The snow queen nec., La faliciana peach, gulf crimson peach and june prince peach have not bloomed. The gulf crimson looks like it will have a dozen bloom out in the next day or two. The white delight #2 has alot of flower buds but has not started pushing blooms. Basically all the trees are their second year except my 2 la feliciana peaches, which are 4 or 5 years old.

All that to say it looks like even on low chill hours like this year they will bloom early, showing they received enough chill hours.

Many thanks. I live in Kingwood (just north of Houston) and all my peaches/nectarines are in bloom. They include Tropic Snow, Mid Pride, Florida Crest and Smooth Delight II. So far we have accumulated 147 chill hours.

Kingwood,

I checked getchill.net for Station I D KTXHOUST591 in Kingwood and it showed you had 442 Chill hours this year. That is about what the stations around Beaumont shows. I have Florida Crest and Mid Pride in 15 gallon pots. The Florida Crest is completely bloomed out but the Mid Pride has not started blooming.

Thanks for the heads up. Now I am really confused. I have been using station ID ktxhumbl18 and it references 147. I check a few other stations in Kingwood and you are correct, the hours are in the low to mid 400 range. I wonder why ktxhumbl18 is incorrect?

I have noticed the same thing on certain stations . It might not have all the months recorded. You can't trust just one station. Some stations that were there last year are not available this year.

Thanks so much Gary, you have really helped me. I am new to the getchill.net site and I have been operating under the impression that the one station I was checking was correct... Looks like that was a bad decision. I am happy to learn that my chill is higher than originally thought.

kingwood,

Arctic Star nectarine, Gulf Crimson Peach, and White Delight #2 peach are all blooming. The June Prince, La Feliciana, and Snow Queen still have not started blooming. Snow Queen seems to bloom, in a 450 chill year, with the higher 450 to 650 peach/nectarine, at least this year anyway. We usually average about 550 chill hours. Last 2 years was over 750 hours. The Florida Crest and Mid Pride peaches are in pots and are blooming. I have a Redskin Peach (750 chill) and Sweet bagel in pots that are not blooming. It looks like even in a very low chill hour for us the Arctic Star will still bloom and should set fruit.

Thanks Gary. How do you rate the flavor of your Gulf Crimson Peach to the other varities you grow?

This will be the first year it will fruit. It is vigorous and grew a good size tree the first year. The only fruit I have gotten a good harvest is the La feliciana. They are going on their 4th year. They were good but not anywhere near what they get further west. I just get too much rain. I got some from Midpride last year and I thought it was better than la feliciana. I have heard that Florda King is not worth growing.

Appreciate it - keep us posted.

I have grown Arctic Star at two houses in Friendswood area and it was great; precocious, good production, fantastic fruit in both taste and appearance. My favorite low-chill nectarine. It's a must-plant in my opinion. I used Nemaguard rootstock. Only problem is bloom timing is just right for brown rot and later plum curculio, so I had to do lots of spraying unfortunately. But that's common for our area with all Prunus trees. Only other nectarine I recommend for our area is Sun Red. I've tried some of the other low-chill varieties like Snow Queen and Panamint, also Florida varieties like the Sun Best. Won't try them again - poor production or too susceptible to disease, etc.

I have grown many varieties of low-chill peach, too. I tried many varieties rated at 400 hours or less which I could find in the catalogs that were also on Nemaguard. The best have been Mid Pride, May Pride and Long Beach Peach. Taste and quality are in that order (Long Beach was NOT consistent in sweetness + taste from peach to peach, though).. All productive. But as with all Prunus, I had to do lots of spraying to thwart brown rot and plum curculio. As for all the other low-chill peach varieties I tried including the popular Tropic Snow, I would not grow again due to problems with production, ripening quality or disease resistance. As another poster mentioned in his post years ago, winter/spring rain and its consequences are a BIG enemy of peaches and nectarines in our area.

An update, sort of, to the Gulf Crimson. It turned red very early and birds and squirrels stole all the fruit. Then Harvey hit and it had 9 feet of water over it. About 1/2 of the tree survived but I moved and the new owners cut all the fruit trees down. I will not plant again due to critter pressure.

I have 2 new Arctic Star. They are both very vigorous, grew really big. Like all nectarines the disease and worms are bad but fruit is really taste. Snow Queen was really tasty but I think it needs more chill hours than we have down here. Never set very much fruit.

I like the Tropic Snow and Tropic Beauty due to their early fruiting. That way I do not have to spray as many times. Last year Tropic Snow was not as good as the year before.

Gary