Late bloom saves peach crop from frost

Yellow Peach Temperatures dipped to a frosty 22 degrees Fahrenheit in the Treasure Valley April 21, but Idaho's commercial peach trees dodged the bullet once again, losing only enough blossoms to shave time and dollars from future hand-thinning.Bloom in the region's peach orchards came too late for the frost to destroy the crop, said Essie Fallahi, University of Idaho fruit tree physiologist.Ducking and dodging around spring frosts and market windows is the name of the game for Idaho's peach producers, Fallahi said. In the future, that may become easier because of some of the research he is doing at the Southwest Idaho Research and Extension Center in Parma.Fallahi expanded UI's peach research orchard at Parma in recent years, planting 50 different varieties of peaches and nectarines. His research strives to develop optimum nutritional and irrigation regimes. He's also seeking improved fruit hardiness, and looking at spreading harvest dates out from mid-July to mid-October.Area growers want to fill the market at different times, he said. That way, peach and nectarine harvest can be interspersed with harvesting other crops. The fruit can also be marketed in the days and weeks when other production areas, particularly California and Washington, are temporarily low on production.Idaho peach growers specialize in niches, said Roger Williamson, Williamson Orchards Inc. He also serves as chairman of the recently formed Idaho Stone Fruit Committee., which supports Fallahi's research.Idaho peaches, grown mainly in Southwest Idaho's Canyon County, are typically marketed into a Labor Day window. That worked well in the past, Williamson said."Whenever one time frame or growing area does well, everybody looks to see what they can do to touch that new market, so it's always revolving," he said. "We're getting some good returns for fruit harvested between Aug. 5 and Aug. 20. This could be a new marketing time if we find a variety that stands out."Fallahi is evaluating yellow-fleshed peaches like Zee Lady and white-fleshed peaches like Snow Giant, and white and yellow-fleshed nectarines. When he's sufficiently tempted by Fallahi's results, Williamson plants them in the orchard his family has operated for 80 years."You're talking about a three-year selection process. You're going to live with that selection for 15 years, so you need to know as much as you can," the growers said. "Essie's work is going to help us for many years."Fallahi is also cooperating with scientists from other states to develop innovative mechanical methods of blossom thinning. A large German-made bloom whacking device called Darwin is currently being intensely scrutinized in Washington by Fallahi and others. It knocks flowers right off the branches. On his own, the researcher is tinkering with an air compression device that would blast blossoms off trees with high-pressure water streams.Idaho's fruit tree census conducted in 2006 by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service reported 68 orchards growing 1,099 acres of peaches, and 15 growing 107 acres of nectarines in the state. They represent 16 per cent and 2 percent, respectively, of Idaho's fruit acreage. Apples dominate at 41 percent.That compares with 1999, the year of the last Ag Census, when apples constituted 62 percent of Idaho fruit acreage, compared with 12 percent for peaches and 1percent for nectarines."I really think the potential is great," Fallahi said. "We have the climate to grow peaches, and the price has been fairly steady."While spring frosts are fairly routine in the region, the researcher said there hasn't been a tree-damaging winter since temperatures dropped to 27 degrees below zero Fahrenheit in 1991.Excessively warm winters can cause California's peaches to develop into undesirable bullet-shaped fruit, rather than being appealingly round. That's not a problem in Idaho, Fallahi said.In Payette County, extension agent Tony McCammon has launched a new program to help Southwest Idaho's fruit growers weather the challenges of frost and insects. He's added a phone message option to the Treasure Valley Pest Alert system, which sends e-mail messages to participating producers throughout the growing season.Treasure Valley Pest Alert is sponsored by both the UI and Oregon State University. The mass-call phone system is funded by the Idaho Apple Commission. It sends 30-second alerts on freezes, codling moths, peach twig borers and Western cherry fruit flies to enrolled producers. That lets them know when key pests are flying or potentially damaging egg-hatches occur. Interested producers can get on the list by writing to McCammon at tonym@uidaho.edu, or calling him at 208-642-6022.For performance details on the peach varieties Fallahi is testing, contact him at efallahi@uidaho.edu, or call him at 208-722-6701, extension 225.