The following is from Wikipedia:
"Peach cultivars in Texas range in their requirements from 100 chilling units (FlordaGrande cultivar, zoned for low chill regions) to 1,000 units (Surecrop, zoned for high chill regions).[6] Planting a low-chilling cultivar in a high-chill region risks loss of a year's harvest when an early bloom is hit by a spring frost.[6] A high-chilling cultivar planted in a low-chill region will, quite likely, never fruit at all. A four-year study of Ruston Red Alabama peach, which has a threshold of 850 chilling units, demonstrated that a seasonal chilling deficiency of less than 50 units has no effect on harvest. Deficiency of 50 to 100 units may result in loss of up to 50% of expected harvest. Deficiency of 250 hours and more is a sure loss of practically whole harvest; the few fruit will be of very poor quality and have no market value.[7] Rest-breaking agents (e.g. hydrogen cyanamide, trade name BudPro or Dormex), applied in spring, can partially mitigate the effects of insufficient chilling. BudPro can substitute for up to 300 hours of chilling, but an excessive spraying and timing error can easily damage the buds.[7] Other products such as Dormex use stabilizing compounds."
If you know the specific peach variety you have, you can probably look up its chilling requirements. The peaches grown in Stonewall tend to be different than the ones grown in my are because they don't require a lot of chilling hours and that makes them bloom too soon here. Though the last few years peaches have been tricked into blooming so often a lot people just aren't trying to grow them like they did when I was a growing sprout.
like my lazy picky peach tree.
