Fruit & Nut Resources

Exciting times for us in the Texas Pierce’s Disease Program as we are getting the first look at some of the new PD resistant and tolerant grape varieties. Grape harvest has started this past week with the first varieties ripening in our new variety trials at Industry, Texas. Industry is located in the old colonial capital of Texas- Austin County, is the site of one of our two evaluation sites for over 30 new and heirloom varieties that will not die from this endemic disease. Companion trials were planted in Leakey this past year and should begin bearing fruit next season. Our goal is to evaluate these new varieties for their ability to withstand fungal pathogens, and ripen with high quality under our heat and unpredictable rainfall patterns.

Pictured here is the new variety released by Texas AgriLife, the University of Arkansas and Tarkington Vineyards ‘Victoria Red’ . While actually released as a seeded table grape, ‘Victoria Red’ is also being evaluated as a neutral wine for blending. In addition to being PD tolerant, this grape reaches large size (9-11 grams) without girdling, cluster thinning or the addition of plant growth regulators. Its loose cluster architecture also makes it far less prone to rot than other varieties. ‘Victoria Red’ has been distributed to nurseries and should begin making its way to commercial trade in time for the 2013 growing season.

Our guest judges this year were Daphne Richards, Extension Horticulturist in Travis County and her partner in plunder, Auggie.  (https://augiedoggiesbloggy.wordpress.com/)  Took quite a bit of work, and the competition was tough, but five places were established for perfect peach,eighth, quarter and half bushel categories.  They finished with a live interview on KFAN Radio.

In addition to the peach contest, peach eating and pit spitting contests made this a real sportsmans field day!

Late freezes and extended drought have been hard on all fruit crops in the last few years, but 2012 has shaped up to be one of the best in quite some time.  Fall rains, chilly, but not brutal winter weather and timely spring rains have resulted in a great crop of high quality peaches in the Texas Hill Country this year.  An early bloom left growers on the edges of their chairs for a few weeks, but the weather stayed warm and sunny resulting in an early, productive harvest.  This season has varieties ripening early and many of our premier varieties are ripening together.  For the first time in recent memory, five different varieties represented the five top entries in the one-eight bussel contest. ‘Red Globe’, ‘Bounty’, Cary Mac’, ‘Loring’ and ‘White Lady’, all were ripe in a local orchard and all had the uniformity and quality that led to the ribbons.  Competition was very tough this year.

Here you will find posts, at least weekly covering a wide variety of fruit topics from growing tips, to variety suggestions, answers to questions, events and whatever we think might peak your interest. While botanically crops such as watermelon and tomato are considered fruit, in the horticultural world, fruit are defined as perennial fruiting crops. Whether tropical or temperate, most fruit crops are woody plants, but under cultivation fruit such as strawberries are commonly treated as tender annual crops and others such as banana are actually grasses.
While I am taking the steps of starting this blog, Larry Stein and Monte Nesbitt have expressed interest in being future contributors. We welcome your photos and questions which we will both answer personally and post for others to view. Feel free to comment on crops or topics you would like to see addressed in this blog and we will do our best to accommodate. Questions and comments can be forwarded to me at j-kamas@tamu.edu

Jim Kamas
Asst. Professor & Extension Horticulturist- Pomology & Viticulture
Outreach Coordinator- Texas Pierce’s Disease Research & Education Program
Texas Agrilife Extension Service
Fredericksburg, Texas