My brother loves fruit. He once visited during strawberry season, and spent the entire afternoon walking through the field eating berries. We had to go out and get him when it got dark. He can eat 5 lbs. or more of Satsuma Mandarins in just a few minutes. He also loves Nectarines, but doesn’t like Peaches — because of the fuzz. He once asked me “Why does anyone grow Peaches at all?” We grow both Peaches and Nectarines at Terra Firma, but if I was going to plant only one or the other again, it would absolutely be peaches. Nectarines are simply harder to grow organically, for several reasons.
Nectarines are a cross between Plums and Peaches, combining the best elements of the two fruits: the smooth skin and juiciness of the former with the size and texture of the latter. The flavor of each of the dozens of varieties of nectarines that exist can be any combination of the two fruits, from 10% Plum/90% Peach to 90%/10%, but the riper the fruits get, the more peach-y they tend to taste.
To most people, Nectarine trees look identical to peach trees, but they grow more slowly due to the plum genetics, and tend to be less vigorous. That means they require less pruning, and generally produce fewer blossoms and fruit. That can be an advantage in a year like this one with ideal conditions during bloom, because peaches have a tendency to “over crop” and require labor-intensive hand-thinning. But in years with less ideal weather during bloom, nectarine crops are always lighter.
Nectarines also lack the natural protection that peaches have against scarring or bruising on the tree. Peach fuzz might be annoying for a consumer, but for the fruit is a form of armor. Most of the scarring on the skin of nectarines happens while the fruit is just days old and still inside the flower. Tiny insects called flower thrips feed on the baby fruit peaches and nectarines that are about the size of the tip of pen. But while the scars on the peaches are hidden under their fuzz, the scars on the nectarines grow along with the fruit and at harvest time leave a certain percentage of them unmarketable due to cosmetic damage. Some years most of our nectarines end up on the floor of the orchard during harvest.
Theoretically, we can spray organic materials that will kill the thrips that are feeding on nectarines, but in order to control them 100% you would have to spray every day for a week. And most years, the weather during nectarine bloom does not allow us to spray more than once or twice. On the flip side, the nearly constant rain during bloom like we had this year also tends to keep thrips from flying.
Thrips are not the only pest that cause damage. Our resident population of birds feed on and damage both peaches and nectarines, but they prefer nectarines, which shine brighter in the sun making them easier to spot. Our best defense against the birds is our harvest crew, which during the season are out working in the orchard daily during the week, which keeps the birds from settling in to have a feast. They play loud music, banging the ladders and driving the tractor through the orchard as they harvest.
Lastly, Nectarines tend to suffer more from fungal diseases. While Peach trees produce fruit on one-year old branches, Nectarines do so on older wood. This turns out to be a critical difference for organic farming, as it is can be difficult for us to effectively treat fungal diseases that kill leaves and branches. If we lose 10% of the branches on the trees during a bad disease year the peaches will recover the following season but the nectarines take two years to do so. Since we farm in an area with wet Winters, we tend to have bad disease years at least once every four years. The Nectarine trees never really recover fully, which means that we almost always harvest less fruit from each tree than from each peach trees the same size and age.
Happily, 2025 looks like one of the best Nectarine crops we’ve had in years — possibly ever. Of course, it’s an even better Peach year, but we’re not going to complain about that. The first of those shiny red fruit are in your boxes today, and we hope you enjoy them.