General
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Peach evaluation is winding down in 2024 with few edible fruits on trees in variety and seedling blocks at the USDA Byron Station. 2024 was a special peach cropping year for breeding at the station. First, peach fruit set was incredibly heavy on a majority of seedling, selection and cultivar trees at the station, at…
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The USDA-ARS stone fruit program at Byron, GA has released two new early season peach cultivars named ‘May Joy’ (Fig. 1) and ‘Cardinal Joy’ (Fig. 2). ‘May Joy’ requires ~650 chill hours and produces yellow-fleshed, clingstone fruit that typically ripen approximately a week before ‘Flavorich’ and 2-3 weeks before ‘Carored’ in early to mid May…
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Obtained from Fruit Grower News – written by Tom Ford – Penn State University (permission to share this info). As a horticultural crop producer, you are approaching your busiest time of year and the COVID-19 outbreak may impact your ability to source inputs, engage workers and/or operate your business in a normal fashion. While we…
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In roundtable peach meetings in recent years, southeastern growers often highlight that bacterial spot remains a leading yield-limiting disease. Spray management is ineffective, and the disease has become more endemic frequently and causes significant losses even in some so-called tolerant/resistant cultivars. The increasing disease incidence emphasize more attention to the epidemiology of the disease on…
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Peach production is different every year. Byron peaches in 2025 were somewhat different, too, due to environmental conditions and unexpected reduced sprays. A few observations are summarized in this article. This summer it was hot and rainy. Pesticide sprays in Byron were partially carried out due to unexpected reduction of the farm management crew. As…
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Unfortunately, thrips have reared their ugly little heads again this year and have caused some considerable damage, particularly to carored peaches. I have had several reports of thrips causing severe “russetting” damage from early feeding and now were are getting into the stage for “silvering” type damage (see example below). With the severity and extent…
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Unfortunately, with the recent storms across the southeast, many have experienced damage to their crop due to hail. While there is not much we can do for severely damaged fruit, there are actions we can take to help mitigate further issues with diseases and insect pests. While this post is a little late, hopefully it…
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Although we have had several days of relatively cool spring weather, overall we have had a warmer start to the season than we did last year. As such, the first large peak of San Jose scale crawler activity is earlier this year compared to last year. Crawlers have already been observed this season. However, with…
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I am a little late with the post for this year, but with the cooler temperature this spring, the scale insects have been slow to develop as well. However, with the warmer temperatures, the scale will begin to develop, so if you haven’t gotten out your delayed-dormant spray yet, there is still time. For delayed…
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Good morning everyone. We are in that time of the year in which we count our chill hours/portions accumulated during the season. As a refreshment, we have multiple sources of information that can be used. Please refer to our previous post https://site.extension.uga.edu/peaches/2025/01/chill-data-sites-and-new-tools-for-dynamic-model-data/ for more detail information of what sources can be found out there to…
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