Weekend Gardener: Doubles in peaches
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – Your peach trees may have a different look this year.
“Doubles is basically a fruit abnormality in peaches,” said Tim Hartmann with Texas A&M AgriLife. “Basically, instead of having a single, normal peach, we end up having two, sometimes three or four or five fused together.”
Hartmann said they’re still edible but kind of ugly.
“The commercial growers don’t want them and even most homeowners don’t want them. So they’re not really desirable,” he said.
Hartmann said he’s heard from a lot of people who are seeing the doubles in peaches already.
“This is the year of doubles and what happens is in July and August when the flower buds are forming on the trees for the next year, what ends up happening is when they’re exposed to a lot of heat, drought stress, which last summer was hot and dry, that’s what causes this abnormality,” he said.
There are some things you can do to prevent this in your peach trees.
“When we do have the doubles like this, what most growers will do is when we thin, we thin our peaches to about six to eight inches apart to make sure they get as big and nice as possible,” said Hartmann. “These are the culls. These are the kinds that we’re going to get rid of. So we want to get rid of these culls.”
Hartmann said it’s also important to make sure you water the tree well.
“Make sure we’re watering our tree well July and August. Mulch helps as well, anything to reduce the stress, that will help make our crop better for the next year.”
