Avalon Pride peach

Ian Harrison reports on his experience in growing the much publicised peach Avalon Pride.

The recently introduced peach, Avalon Pride, blossomed and bore fruit with me this year (2010). Flavour was very good, texture firm but juicy, flesh yellow and clingstone. The fruits ripened and began to give off a distinct ‘peachy’ aroma late in July from a tree grown out of doors in soil on an allotment site open to the sun all day. The colour of the skin developed from yellow with orange streaks through to dark purple by the time of full ripeness. The fact of its ripening the whole crop late in July must be of interest to amateurs.

My tree was ordered in 2008 and I was informed then that delivery would not take place until early 2009. The tree arrived in a box nearly 6 feet long without any external sign of damage. However opening the box it was clear the tree was too long for it. The top six inches had been crudely snapped over when the tree was packed and several stems were seriously damaged.

I wrote to the supplier but received no reply. I wrote again and heard nothing from the company. Then late in March 2009 another tree was delivered to me without any covering notice. This time the top six inches of the tree together with several stems was sticking out of the box and they were damaged in transit. Two of the larger roots had been damaged by the packer twisting them round to fit the roots and tree into the box! I wrote to the company again and heard nothing though I still receive their catalogues.

The damaged top and stems were pruned off and I sealed the wounds with candle wax as a temporary measure and repruned again when the sap was rising at the end of May 2009. The damaged roots were pruned cleanly when the tree was planted. The tree grew well throughout 2009 and was not affected by peach leaf curl.

It blossomed in late spring this year benefiting from a mild spring along with other stone fruits and early pears here on the coastal strip near Brighton in Sussex. But as the fruitlets began to form every ten were malformed being double or triple fruitlets. I thinned these off in stages throughout June which left me with some twenty fruits. These swelled rapidly and four snapped the stems on which they were growing.

Late in April 2010 a distinguished fruit grower was to be seen on the QVC Home Shopping Channel advertising this variety of peach. The specimens he was holding up to the camera were in every respect the same shape and size as I received in the post and appeared to be three or four year old trees. They were, however, completely dormant at a time when mine was already on the move. But what disturbed me about this advert was the insistence that the tree would produce ‘150 fruits’ if planted this year . The incredulous presenter, who was clearly cast in the role of first-time fruit grower, kept repeating ‘what I can get 150 peaches off this tree this year?’ To which came the reply ‘Yes. 150 peaches this year!’

This variety seems to be resisting if not resistant to peach leaf curl as suppliers claim - there appears to be more than one now. The fruit has very good colour and flavour and produces earlier out of doors than the traditional Peregrine or Rochester. So if you are looking for a variety to grow out of doors this is a candidate worth considering. But claims as to the size and total yield of the crop per tree should be treated with caution. It is probably best grown fan-trained to enable the relatively brittle peach wood to hold the crop, particularly in areas prone to gusts of wind. Either that or the method recommended by Justin Brooks (Peach Orchards in England ) of the low grown open-centred bush with regular renewal pruning when the sap is rising and a thick mulch of straw beneath the branches.

Ian Harrison

*We thank Suttons Seeds & Plants for permission to reproduce this picture of Avalon Pride.