CUISINE & CULTURE
In last week’s column were some guidelines for choosing fruit trees for West Texas gardens.
A quick recap of the first three:
· Know the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone for your growing area. Our West Texas readership area encompasses hardiness zone 8a, 10 to 15° F, in the southern region and 7b, 5 to 10° F, the northern region (planthardiness. ars.usda.gov).
· Chilling requirement. The number of cold hours below 40° F that must be met to break winter dormancy for growth to resume in the spring, not the same as the hardiness zone. For our growing area choose a tree with a long chill requirement.
· Size. Choose a tree size to fit your space. Standards, 30 feet in height; semi-dwarf, 15 feet; dwarf 6 to 15 feet.
Choices of fruit trees for West Texas. An additional word about the chilling requirement: choose trees for USDA hardiness zones that have high chill hours, 900 or more. Planting trees with low chill hour requirement in a high chill requirement zone like West Texas, allows for early blooms, which will be killed with a freeze.
Stone fruits. Stone fruits are members of the Rosaceae family in the genus Prunus. Stone fruit can have chill hours for as few as 200, variety ‘Tropic Snow’, to as high as ‘Redhaven’, 950 hours. A reminder – ‘Tropic Snow’ trees can bloom as early as December, while chill hours of ‘Redhaven’ will not have been met until March or April.
The outer fleshy section of the fruit surrounds a single seed, which is a hard shell called a stone, hence the classification as stone fruits. Trees in this category are Cherry, Nectarine, Peach and Plum.
Pome fruits. As for stone fruits, pome fruit have the same chill requirement. Pome fruits are also members of the Rosaceae family. Unlike many fruits, the flesh of a pome fruit develops from the fused petals and sepals that surround the female organ that forms what is called the core. Inside the central, tough membrane of the core are multiple small seeds. Trees in this category are Apple, Pear, Quince.
Stone fruit and pome fruit trees are not trained the same. Guidelines for pruning each will follow in the next two columns.
A Texas source for fruit trees is Womack Nursery, Deleon, Texas. Contact by phone (855) 993-6497; womacknursery. com.
Ellen Peffley Harp, a retired professor of horticulture at Texas Tech University, writes about gardening for several Texas newspapers.
