I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been so busy that I haven’t been able to spend as much time as I’d like to, coupled with the fact that this isn’t the most productive time to grow vegetables in Miami, but now that business has let up a little I find myself longing to spend more time with my edible garden. I’ve trying to devote more time to my fruit trees lately & when I saw a UF Sun peach tree available for sale, I bought it. I remember from my previous research, I felt that this variety would be best suited to our climate in South Miami-Dade and my purposes. After I bought it, I wondered why I hadn’t purchased it sooner, so I looked into it again.

The glaring problem that I saw was while this variety had the lowest (100) chill hours I could find, I found out that our area typically only gets 0-50 chill hours. I knew that while I was visiting a nursery in the lower Keys (while I was on vacation, can you believe it?) I saw a lot of peach trees for sale and they told me they were producing nice harvests of delicious peaches in that zone 11. Now I know that she was trying to sell me one of her highly priced trees, so I took what she said with a grain of salt.

I took this qustion to John McLaughlin at the Miami Dade County Cooperative Extension (305-248-3311 ext. 228), and this is what he replied via email:

None of the current University of Florida low chill peaches are dependable south of Immokalee. Miami-Dade receives 0 – 50 chilling units per year, while UF fruit tree specialists recommend that to be reliable, the peach cultivar chosen should have a chilling unit requirement lower than the number of chilling units expected for a given location. Calculating chilling units is complicated but as a simple guide if the average mean January temperature exceeds the maximum temperature for a given cultivar it will not be productive. For instance the mean average for January in Miami is 68°F, while the maximum temperature for the low chill peach UF Sun (requires 100 chilling units) is 63.3°F. Sufficient chilling is needed to ensure not only flowering but also to permit development of vegetative buds that will produce new stems and leaves. For a tree that requires 100 chilling units there will be the odd year locally when chilling is sufficient (certainly the winters of 2009-2010 and 2010-2011) but overall insufficient chilling will produce erratic fruit crops of often inferior fruit and a decline in tree vigor.
Up until the 1960’s the Ceylon red peach, which is truly tropical, was a popular local backyard fruit tree. Then came the Caribbean fruit fly and interest rapidly waned – that pest is still here and difficult to control.

My question is, “what is your experience with growing peaches?”, specifically in South Miami-Dade county, but also in any part of Miami-Dade, Broward & Monroe counties (or any zone 10B). Any feedback is greatly appreciated and may help me to decide whether or not I want to return this tree.