The medium-early ripening Pilot peach variety is a mass-yielding variety with good fruit quality. The fruits are suitable for fresh consumption as well as for cooking and freezing.
What distinguishes the Pilot peach variety?
The Peach Pilot is a medium-early ripening, high-yielding peach variety that comes from Dresden. The fruits have a sweet-sour, white flesh and are ideal for fresh consumption or for preserving. The variety is easy to care for and resistant to curl disease.
Peach Pilot comes from Dresden
This peach variety is a real “Ossi”, as it was bred from mother plants of the “Prinz” variety at the Radebeul fruit testing station near Dresden at the end of the 1960s. The very productive Peach Pilot has been commercially available since 1971. The region around Dresden is still one of the main peach growing areas in Germany.
White-fleshed fruits
The fruits are medium to very large, weighing up to 280 grams, and have an elongated-oval shape. The basic color is greenish yellow to yellow, although in some places it can also have dark red, washed out spots or carmine red dots. The finely woolly skin is thin and can be easily removed. The fibrous, white flesh has a very pleasant, sweet-sour and aromatic taste. The large flowers are very similar to rose petals, they are also slightly frost sensitive and self-fertile.
Good care is important for high yields
Peach trees of the Pilot variety grow very strong and upright. They typically form highly spherical crowns that are densely branched. The wood is very frost hardy. In terms of location, Pilot is not very demanding, but care in locations suitable for peaches must be appropriate to the high yield potential of the variety. This means you have to water the tree regularly and, above all, cut it.
High resistance to frizz disease
Peach trees of this variety have a high resistance to the curl disease that often occurs in peaches. The ascomycete fungus Taphrina deformans primarily attacks the leaves, so that they are subsequently thrown off the tree. The high loss of leaves weakens the tree, which is why infestation must be prevented.
Treatment of frizz disease
Once the disease has broken out, there are no longer any options for containing it. For this reason, preventative measures should be taken above all. Since the fungus has already established itself in the buds, they can be sprayed with a fungicide containing copper. The optimal time for such a treatment is the so-called swelling stage.
Tips & Tricks
Peaches should not be fertilized when planting, but should be watered thoroughly. Between May and the end of July you can then fertilize with potassium and nitrogen to stimulate he althy leaf growth. Stable manure or horn shavings are ideal.
