Chill hours, how much do they matter?

You are funny Drew, and by your reasoning concerning clones, which cloned fruit trees are short lived?

Castanea, I am unsure of the genetic relationship of the tree in the photo to the peaches we grow here, but thanks for posting the photo, it is beautiful.

Guardian was released about 25 years ago. It’s not the answer to peach longevity. I’m unconvinced rootstock makes the difference. I’ve had/have peaches on virtually every commercial peach rootstock available in the U.S. (Lovell, Halford, Bailey, Starks Redleaf, Guardian, Tenn. Nat., and lots of peaches on my own seedlings). I have also raised peaches on a few plum or plum hyrbrid roostocks K1, St. Julian, Citation, and I think K86. Rootstock is not the difference. We don’t even have PTSL here. I think we can be pretty sure if it were something as simple as roostock to peach tree longevity, someone in the U.S. would be doing it.

Drew,

Scion wood doesn’t have a biological clock. Does scion wood even have telomeres? Either way, it’s the whole organism which determines the life of the tree. Trees as an organism have a biological clock, and it’s different for different species. There are redwoods 2000 years old, doesn’t mean there are any pear trees which can live that long.

Castanea,

The picture you posted looks suspiciously like the pics shown in the previous thread I mentioned (prunus mira, or prunus kansuensis). I’m not trying to be contentious but I reject the idea that peach trees (persica) can be inherently long lived, and that it’s just that we don’t have the right climate here (any climate in China can be found in North America). I doubt it’s just that all the published literature is only in Chinese. Persica trees living hundreds of years would hardly be able to be kept secret.

Show me a tree with a trunk the size of the pics I see from prunus mira, which has actually red fuzzy peaches on it, and I will shut up. Strangely, the only pics I see of the “legendary” peach trees only show flowers.

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I’ve been thinking how silly it was of me to spend so much time grafting all sorts of stone fruits to the peach I grew from a peach pit back in 2004, since it’s now 13 and might not have much life left in it. But if it’s true that seedling peaches are longer lived, I’m in luck! I will report in a few years :wink: if it starts to die. It’s not super-healthy now, but that’s probably because I really haven’t fed it anything, since I had to be away during the crucial months last year, and in years before that I didn’t understand how much food trees need. I’ve learned that from this forum.

The grafts on it of vigorous stone fruits, like Dapple Dandy, still grow like gangbusters, though.

One thing is certain. There is no magical place in China or anywhere else that will turn the peaches we grow in America into 1,000 yr old trees. Besides who cares, 15 yrs is long enough for me. And I don’t need watermelons that last 15 yrs. Radish I’m happy with a few months.

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It would still be peaches. Hard to say since they seem to live over 9000 years as far as we can tell. Under ideal conditions, a peach tree should live at least that long. Very few trees can take environmental stress that long. We know of only a few species that will. The oldest known fossil of peach is 2.5 million years old. Not that tells us anything except it was an early flowering plant.

If humans could be cloned like a tree, we would live maybe 250 years. Human cells degrade quickly, my cells are not the same as when i was born. Whereas a peach tree cloned several times over say a few hundred years shows no signs of cellular degradation. I think since so much information has to be passed in mitosis of higher organisms, the chance of mistakes is greater. We are not seeing these mistakes in tree cells. Hence they appear not to age and can be cloned for thousands of years. Eventually i suspect they will show aging and mistakes in replication which we call aging.
If we could replace every body part with machinery except the brain, we would live about 200-250 years at most as our brains would become non-functional after that. Due to age. Our brains age just like the rest of us.

We just recently mastered cloning monkeys. Interesting things happen with clones. Say a monkey lives 30 years. if we clone a 15 year old monkey the clone will live 15 years. if we clone a 25 year old monkey the cloned monkey will live 5 years. We discovered this early on. That cells remember their biological age. Best to make clones from young animals or even fetal tissue. As far as I know, we believe this is true with plants too.

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I would disagree completely all research show it does.
The only thing i can point to right now is bamboo, but i saw numerous studies that refute what you say.
Here’s some bamboo info
look under Gregarious Flowering
https://www.guaduabamboo.com/identification/bamboo-flowering-habits

http://www.bamboogarden.com/when%20bamboo%20flowers.htm

I don’t really have time to research but on page 48 of Genetics, Genomics and Breeding of Stone Fruits
edited by Chittaranjan Kole, Albert G. Abbott
Says that age of tree, and age of clone, disease pressure, weather pressure, determine life and productivity of peach trees.

We give trees nutrients- they give us food and make their own.

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

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Well, it might be a stretch that all research shows scion wood has a biological clock, but certainly you are correct that gregarious flowering bamboo does. I don’t know that the bamboo example would transfer to all plants. But my statement went too far to say scionwood doesn’t have a biological clock. Certainly bamboo scionwood does.

As you know many plants like blackberries are propagated over and over by tissue culture. If there were a biological clock (like bamboo) I would think it must be a very very slow one.

Regardless, I only mentioned it because the date of origin of an antique cultivar (like Indian Free) has nothing to do with how long a given tree of that cultivar is capable to live. The pear cultivar Bartlett has been around for 400 years, but I don’t know of any Bartlett tree anywhere which is 400 years old.

Some grape varieties have been around much longer, but the oldest specific grape vine is only 500 years old.

Edit:

@Drew51

After a bit more reading it seems that while many plants have circadian clocks (rhythms) the cells on an individual level don’t have clocks which would limit their lifespan (from an asexual reproductive standpoint) which is the context I was referring to. Although I don’t doubt there are some anomalies out there, I don’t think this would apply to the trees we are talking about. Plants do have telomeres but they don’t shorten as in mammals. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9894917

I think trees are pretty much capable of asexually reproducing forever. Here is an example of an aspen “tree” which is estimated to have been reproduced for 80,000 years.

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No not at all, the stretch is what you say. No offense but you’re telling me a perfect cloning process exists? All cell mitosis has a mutation rate in all living things. Trees are not exempt. A sport is a super quick mutation, somewhat rare. You can determine clonal age with certain molecular tests. These mutation rates and the amount of mutations we collectively call aging. This is not in dispute, clones do age, nobody I know says they do not. It is the way of the world. Here is an article about the clonal age of aspen trees, and how it is affecting their ability to reproduce sexually. The article backs what i say. This article was written 8 years ago.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100817171601.htm

No, although I can see that you might assume that from my statement, “I think trees are pretty much capable of asexually reproducing forever.” And I also said, “the cells on an individual level don’t have clocks which would limit their lifespan (from an asexual reproductive standpoint”

But before over-literalizing what I said in order to respond, keep in mind you’ve said things very similar.

Of course mutations exist, that’s not what either of us is claiming. Also of course trees ultimately have biological clocks, else how could scientists date the Pando example I gave above. Again my statement was contextual. Trees don’t have biological clocks in the sense compared to the animal kingdom, in which the clocks tick very fast.

My whole point in this line of discussion with you originated from your comment that you agreed with Casanea’s statement, “It is not a genetic component of peach trees to be short lived.”

In your opinion that peach trees are genetically long lived, you seemed to find support that because Indian Free has been successfully cloned for 300 years, somehow peaches should be long lived, and it’s just an environmental issue.

My point, if you read my responses carefully in my discussions with you, is that about all trees are able to be cloned “pretty much” forever (or to use your words “about” forever). So the example of Indian free being successfully cloned for 300 years is no evidence (imo) that peach trees should be long lived under the right environment (in the context of the environment on planet Earth, which is what we are currently subject to). If you read my responses carefully, that’s ultimately what I took issue with. Most trees can be cloned forever but have short lives, or long lives on our planet (depending on the family or genus) so I didn’t see, and still don’t see, how the example of Indian free being a 300 year old cultivar could be used as some support of the lifespan peach trees should be capable of living.

You seem to be misunderstanding the point I’m trying to communicate, but perhaps I have misunderstood you,as well.

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I think Drew admitted the limitation of his point when I asked him to identify the shortest living trees based on his standard. The discussion is not about clone life in the lab, it is about the relative longevity of productive peach trees compared to other fruit trees while growing in orchards. The examples of longevity for peaches need to be from peach trees that produce fruit that we consume under the name of peaches- the life span of relatives (even if locals call them peach trees) or of clonal material isn’t the issue here, but maybe that’s where you guys have gone- which is fine.

I do think clone life doesn’t matter as these trees probably live 9000 years before they start to decline. But also feel this is simple biology…I should not have to defend such an established concept,
I do realize most have not formally studied genetics,organic chemistry, biochemistry, physics, and physiology like I have and maybe I’m expecting too much?

I took enough classes to have a minor in chem and took 2 college level biology classes and micro biology and I’m still a little confused.

I think what you’re trying to say is that organisms, as they age, are subject to some level of mutation/degradation at the cellular level.

So, logically, a tree that has been clonally propagated for 500 years is not quite the same as the original parent.

I follow that on a theoretical level.

Where my knowledge fails is how much this mutation/degradation affects trees in particular. Supposing you could do this to humans, in a few generations, you’d have a clone that was obviously inferior to the original.

But can we assume plant/trees work the same way and in the same timeframe? I don’t feel comfortable assuming human mitosis/meiosis = plant Mitosis/meiosis.

I think to answer that question, you’d probably have needed to take a class in botany specifically (or maybe even an advanced botany class). So I don’t think a general science background really suffices for a definitive knowledge of the answer to this question.

I can grasp your point, yes, and see the theoretical lines upon which you’re thinking, but without intimate knowledge of plant mitosis/meiosis, I can’t tell whether you’re right.

I think others may just be similarly confused.

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That was my point (in a round about way) so that closes the issue for me.

Incidentally, I followed everything you mentioned, so I hope you weren’t having to defend established concepts for my benefit. I wasn’t aware of gregarious bamboo clocks before you mentioned it, so I found that quite interesting.

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This is my experience also with some stone fruit. Pluots/pluerry flavor grenade(400), flavor king (400), sweet treat pluerry (450)have produced heavily eventhough I about got 300chill hours and -171 chill hours in the utah model.

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actualy, That first cloned sheep dolly died of premature aging. It was the results of early cloning techniques getting it right. Dolly has 4 cloned sisters and none of them share that defect. Dolly the Sheep’s Fellow Clones, Enjoying Their Golden Years - The New York Times

That is a very interesting case, Much info was learned. It’s got nothing to do with the point I was trying to make. Clones from young animals should have completely normal lives, i agree with that. My point was the older the mother clone cells are the less life left for a clone line from it. Premature aging is not what I’m talking about. Normal aging is though. Random mutations eventually destroy all lines of life, the only way is sexual reproduction as the process starts from scratch again. In the case of trees, clone life is so long it is nothing ever to worry about, but one day all plants propagated by cloning will run out their biological clocks. Nobody i know disputes that. It is our current understanding. The article I pointed to in an earlier post confirms all I say if you read it.
Honey Royale nectarine will be propagated by clones, as it doesn’t come true to seed, it’s a hybrid. In 2918 after millions of trees, and billions of cell divisions growing and living as trees, the random mutations will be so heavy that the cultivar will be lost. Now I may be wrong about 9 thousand years, it may last 20 thousand, but one day it will no longer be viable as enough functions will be so mutated. We have this problem today with heirloom tomatoes. We know random mutations have changed them and many probably do not even resemble the original heirloom tomato anymore. Often it’s best to go back as far as possible with old seeds to try and restore a less mutated line of the heirloom. I first heard of this problem in an interview with Craig LeHoullier the creator and founder of the Dwarf Tomato Project. Also the author of Epic Tomatoes, the guy who named Cherokee Purple. He probably talks about it in his Epic Tomatoes book. I have yet to read it.He’s working on a third book and it’s about the Dwarf Tomato Project.

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```[quote="Olpea, post:35, topic:14376, full:true"]
[quote="Richard, post:34, topic:14376"]
Actually there are areas of the L.A. metropolis with 800-900 chill hours.
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LA as in Louisiana, where the original poster is from.
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Richard..

You seem to know a lot about the Yucaipa area. I’m having a hard time trying to figure out the chill hours here. I tried using those links but I dont see specific chill hours for my area.  I’m in between oak glen Apple orchards and cherry valley cherry orchards. The upper part. I’ve had success with 700 chill hour cherry’s. And now I want to try to grow O Henry peach tree but worried I don’t always get 7-800  chill hours.. any clue on how many I get ?

I’m not sure about your chill hours.

The fires missed you?

Ya I was a block away from evacuation. I know I’m always 5-10 degrees cooler than Redlands.

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