There are four excellent, yellow and white-fleshed nectarine varieties harvested during mid-July. These varieties were developed at the Rutgers Fruit Breeding program and evaluated over the years at multiple Southern New Jersey locations. The ripening days could be a few days later for central and northern New Jersey. [Read more…]
July 22, 2025 Hemant Gohil and Daniel Ward
Mid-July Nectarine Varieties for NJ – Silvergem, Silverglo, Easternglo, and Avalon
July 22, 2025 Hemant Gohil and Daniel Ward
Mid-July Peach Varieties – Gala, PF 8 Ball, Summer Serenade, July Rose, and PF Lucky 13
GALA is a medium to medium-large, globose, 70-90% scarlet red over yellow-orange ground color, yellow-fleshed, semi-freestone peach ripening July 11-15, about a week after the Sentry. The flesh is firm, with a sweet and mildly tangy flavor. The tree is vigorous and moderately productive. Note that these varieties were evaluated in southern New Jersey; as a result, the harvest dates could be a few days later for the Central and Northern New Jersey orchards.
Challenges: Gala is a beautiful peach in a great season, but the size and yield could be highly variable. Split pits are a problem even in a normal year, and the first pick may have significant split pits. Fruit has medium susceptibility to bacterial spot.
FLAMIN FURY® PF#8 BALL is a large, globose, 70-90% crimson red over greenish-yellow ground color, yellow-fleshed semi-clingstone peach with prominent suture groove, ripening during July 13-18. The fruit is firm, with melting, sweet, juicy flesh, and has a sweet and tangy flavor. The tree is spreading, vigorous, and productive, with medium susceptibility to bacterial spots. A promising variety because of its color and size. A good option to replace Gala peach.
SUMMER SERENADE is a medium-large, globose to ovate, attractive, 50-70% crimson red over yellow-green ground color, yellow-fleshed, semi-clingstone peach ripening from July 13-16, approximately 11 days before Redhaven. The flesh is firm with fair to good flavor. The tree is moderately vigorous and productive, with low susceptibility to bacterial spot. Summer Serenade has a better size than Garnet Beauty and PF 7, with a significant suture groove and flavor like Garnet Beauty.
JULY ROSE is a popular white fleshed peach with excellent firmness, cling stone, and low fuzz. Fruit is large and attractive, and ripens between Sugar May and White Lady from 15-20 July. Fruit is always very sweet and sub-acid. It has good fruit and leaf resistance to bacterial leaf spot. Even poorly thinned trees tend to produce large-sized fruit. Moderate fruit or bloom thinning will be required to optimize size and quality. Fruit hangs well and has better cold-hardiness than other white varieties.
Snowbrite is a good white-fleshed peach that ripens a few days after July Rose but is highly susceptible to bacterial spots. Scarlet Pearl is another good white-fleshed peach. However, it is a cold, tender variety and produces split pits.
FLAMIN FURY PF LUCKY 13 is a large, globose to slightly ovate, heavy scarlet red over orange-yellow ground color, yellow-fleshed, freestone peach ripening near or earlier than Redhaven. The flesh is crunchy, firm, and sweet and tangy. The tree is vigorous and productive, with slight drop and inking tendencies and low to moderate susceptibility to bacterial spots. This very attractive peach has also shown good size and minimal splits.
Previous related articles
- Early July Peach Varieties: https://plant-pest-advisory.rutgers.edu/early-july-peach-varieties-sentry-glenglo-ruby-prince-garnet-beauty-and-sugar-may/
- Late June Peach Varieties: https://plant-pest-advisory.rutgers.edu/late-june-peach-varieties-for-new-jersey-new-and-standard/
July 15, 2025 Hemant Gohil and Daniel Ward
Early July Peach Varieties – Sentry, Glenglo, Ruby Prince, Garnet Beauty, and Sugar May
Warmer temperatures and periodic rains in the last few weeks helped early July peach varieties achieve a bigger size. There are excellent peach varieties throughout the harvest season; however, each has a few challenges, and understanding the overall tree and fruit characteristics can help make thinning, harvest, disease management, and post-harvest decisions. The Newer varieties were also compared against standard varieties. Understanding these differences is essential for selecting new varieties or replacing existing ones. Note that these varieties were evaluated in southern New Jersey; as a result, the harvest dates could be a few days later for the Central and Northern New Jersey orchards.
Sentry: It’s a medium-large to large, red over green-yellow ground-colored peach that ripens during the first week of July. The flesh is moderately firm, very sweet, and mildly tangy (Total Soluble Solids (TSS) 11.32 Brix and Titratable Acidity (TA) 2.08 g/l). It is one of the sweeter varieties in this harvest window. In general, the TSS greater than 11 Brix is considered very sweet. It can get bigger up to 3 inches in diameter, however, at the cost of firmness. It has low susceptibility to the bacterial spot.
Challenges: The main challenge is that fruit has a variable cropping record, but growers prefer it because of its size and taste. Also, a green-yellow background color may give the impression of unripe fruit. Some growers have noticed that older trees of Sentry produced unevenly ripened fruit where one end of the tip was softer while the other end was much firmer. Bigger fruits tend to split. The general recommendation is to avoid letting fruit get bigger than 2 ¾ inches till the Redhaven season.
Glenglo: It’s an attractive yellow-fleshed peach that gets harvested a few days after ‘Sentry’. In some years, it gets harvested before Sentry or overlaps with Sentry. The fruit is medium-large in size, sweet, acidic, and mildly tangy (TSS 11 Brix; and TA 2.5 g/l). It has low susceptibility to bacterial Spot. The cold-hardiness is better than Sentry’s. Glenglo is comparable to Sentry; however, it does not have the problem of uneven ripening. It is considered worthy of replacing “Sentry.
Ruby Prince: It’s a medium-large, globose, and attractive semi-clingstone yellow-fleshed peach variety that ripens a few days after Sentry and Glenglo. The flesh is moderately firm with a sweet and mildly tangy flavor. The scarlet-red over yellow skin color and uniform shape of fruit makes it very attractive variety. It is a worthy replacement of ‘Sentry’. The flesh has greater traces of red. Fruit size is medium to large and uniform.
Garnet Beauty is a sport of Redhaven, ripening about 12-14 days earlier. Yellow-fleshed, clingstone, medium-sized peach, relatively hardy with 40-60% red blush. Fruit is high quality, firm, and freestone when fully ripe. The fruit has a prominent suture groove. The tree is vigorous and productive. The flavor is not great compared to other varieties this season.
Other yellow-fleshed peach varieties: Flaming Fury PF7 is a medium to medium-large, semi-freestone yellow-fleshed peach that ripens during the Glenglo season. This is a good-yielding peach variety; however, most other varieties have better sizes.
White-fleshed Peach Varieties.
Sugar May is a firm, white-fleshed, clingstone peach ripening around July 7. dark red to purplish red skin color. The flavor is good, but acidic. The tree is vigorous and productive but susceptible to bacterial spot.
Challenges: For the white fleshed peach, it is a little too acidic, and some consumers’ expects white peaches in general to be very sweet and sub-acid. Skin is dark red, so one must bite to determine if it has ripened. The core stays greenish-yellow. As seen in the photo, the first superficial (right) bite has cream flesh; however, the slightly deeper (left) bite has greenish flesh. Also, it is moderately susceptible to bacterial spot.
June 30, 2025 Hemant Gohil and Daniel Ward
Late June Peach Varieties for New Jersey– New and Standard
The many peach varieties grown in New Jersey were developed in different breeding programs from several peach-growing regions, including the Rutgers Tree Fruit Breeding program. Recent evaluations have examined the known characteristics and challenges growers face in growing these varieties. These are important for making planting, thinning, harvesting, post-harvest handling, and marketing-related decisions. Understanding these differences is important for selecting varieties or replacing existing ones.
Desiree is a very attractive yellow-fleshed, clingstone peach variety, ripening during the last week of June. The fruit is beautiful and medium to moderately large, which is impressive for the early-season variety. The flesh is firm with a very sweet and tangy flavor. The tree is vigorous, and its leaves have low susceptibility to bacterial spot. The fruit is also having low susceptibility to Bacterial Spot. [Read more…]
May 16, 2025 Hemant Gohil and Daniel Ward
Deer Damage Control in the Vineyard
New Jersey’s high deer population significantly threatens vineyards, particularly those near wooded areas. Deer are a pest, especially on young vines and in the early growing season when food sources are scarce, and tender shoots are emerging. If the vineyard is close to the deer population, management is needed for the long-term productivity of the vineyards.
Identifying the deer damage: Deer browse on leaves and tender shoots using the lower front teeth. Deer do not have upper incisors, so the leaves browsed by deer have a rough, torn, and shredded appearance but no tooth marks (Figure 1). This can cause substantial crop loss and even compromise the health of the vines, specifically if the same vine is damaged over the years (Figure 1). Fortunately, secondary buds of grapevines can grow and produce replacement shoots when the actively growing shoot tip from the primary bud is damaged. A new shoot from a basal bud may not be as productive, however, it will ensure new vegetative growth, sustaining the canopy of the grapevine. [Read more…]
Preparing Orchards Against the Frost – Low Tech Strategies
Frost is common in the northeastern US. However, frost events during bloom, specifically in orchard crops, can be economically devastating. Often, the cause is a few hours below the injury threshold temperature for the developing buds, as cooler nights result in the rapid loss of thermal energy. Several passive or low-tech strategies can help maintain a slightly higher orchard floor temperature and potentially prevent substantial crop loss.
Site selection is the most effective frost protection method. When planning a new orchard, selecting a site with proper cold air drainage is the most valuable decision a grower can make and enjoy the rewards for many years. Cold air drainage is essential, so avoid buying a site or planting trees on the site that accumulate cold air. Also, identify areas where the cold air moves in and out. When possible, plant early blooming varieties in the least frost-prone areas and plant delayed and or extended bloom varieties in frost-prone areas.
Table 1. Relative temperature differences are influenced by orchard floor conditions (Courtesy, Robert Crassweller, PSU).
Do not invite the frost with excess vegetation and ground cover. The management of weeds along the row and sod between the rows will influence orchard temperatures. The bare ground will absorb more heat during the day and release more heat at night than soil covered in vegetation (Table 1). During the day, 45-50% of solar radiation gets reflected or absorbed by the atmosphere, and the earth absorbs the remaining 50-55%. Vegetation reduces this heat transfer to the soil because it reflects light before it can reach the soil surface. Removing tall weeds and windbreaks along the edges of orchards will also help improve airflow and limit the accumulation of cold air pockets in some areas of the orchard. This can be particularly important during spring bloom when just a few more degrees can make the difference between killing the flowers or not!
Extremely low grass cutting: Maintaining sod between the rows at a minimum height by frequently mowing will help with frost protection. Similarly, keeping the rows weed-free by using postemergence herbicides to kill emerged weeds and removing weed residues from the previous season will maximize the warming of the soil by solar energy during the day. Maintaining weed-free rows should also be considered by applying residual herbicides in the fall. Depending on herbicides applied in the fall, this will prevent or reduce weed emergence in early spring and give you more flexibility for applying your residual and postemergence herbicides in spring.
The cold air drain machine has a fan that pulls cold air from the surrounding ground and pushes it into the sky. This is effective in a lower section of the orchard or the end of the vineyard where the cold air drains due to a slight slope. Placing the machine in the middle of the orchard may prove ineffective as the pulled cold air could settle back into the orchard unless there is a low inversion layer to mix with warmer air. Using the cold air drain machine can enhance the effectiveness of low grass cutting. The machine costs around $15,000, and its operating cost is much less than other active frost protection methods.
Wet soil slows the release of thermal energy on frost night. However, the soil profile must be thoroughly wet. This can be achieved by irrigating the soil to field capacity (maximum water holding capacity of that soil). Also, the temperature must be warmer during the preceding days to pack sufficient heat into the soil. Sandy soils store less energy than loamy soils because there is more air space between soil particles than loamy soils. Heavier soils may require more than 8–10 hours of irrigation to reach field capacity.
Delayed pruning delays bud development, which helps avoid damage from early spring frosts. Years of observation in commercial orchards in the northeast indicate that more buds survive after a frost event, specifically in peaches, if the pruning is delayed. Often, large farm operations begin pruning early in the dormant season due to labor availability and time constraints. In such cases, avoid pruning upper branches until the risk of a late freeze has passed. Also, avoid hard blossom thinning on peaches on lower branches or blossom thinning altogether. Instead, focus only on fruit thinning, which can serve as insurance against crop loss. Remember that any available crop will likely command a good price in frost years.
Combining the above methods can have a cumulative effect on overall frost protection in the orchard. Keeping trees healthy with proper nutrient and pest management is also important. Healthy trees may still lose a crop but are more likely to survive the next season than poor vigor and diseased trees. The success of Frost Protection will also depend on understanding each method’s working principles and the combination of environmental factors necessitating its use. The bulletin https://njaes.rutgers.edu/e363/ explains what to monitor before a frost event and active frost protection methods such as irrigation, heat application, and air mixing.
