Aging of a peach tree

[jujubemulberry]

@ColoradoWhitePeach

I truly thought it was at its end of the line and was ready to retire but the next summer it came back as strong as ever and grew tons of suckers

suckering of true persica’s is also relatively uncommon, compared, say, to plums, which makes your tree really special(and taking into account that it continues to sucker in its old age).

was wondering if you could propagate it using root cuttings ad infinitum. There is so much about your tree that demands an exhaustive study. You’ve watched it for more than 40 years, and now i wish someone could watch it for 40 more years–especially its self-rooted clones…

while many are understandably enamored with budwood , the curious kitty cat typing this seems to be more intrigued with serial vegetative reproduction via suckers.

if you check the website “Monumental Trees” entry page for Prunus persica, it is empty.
Indirect evidence that persica’s aren’t even worth mentioning(as there’s nothing really special about a 20 year old peach tree that is already in decline)

i hereby nominate your tree to fill that void

also wish to send a tissue sample to the maury show for dna analysis

[alan]

I have family in Denver. Let me know if you have any trees for sale, I’d like to purchase one for my sister.

[ColoradoWhitePeach]

Very interesting! Maury Show? As in Maury Povich? Is that show still airing? And do they care about tree genetics? lol =D Thats surprising to me haha. I am willing to participate, why not. I’ve always known that tree back there was special, my grandmother knew it too but it seemed no one else we knew cared… it’s nice to know that we weren’t just imagining it because it was our tree - we knew it was different from every other tree that ever grew before (and after).

As a matter of fact the tree started another sucker last year and you can see it is about 3 feet tall now (the young green branch that is circled). A branch is covering where you can actually see where it is connected to the bottom of the trunk (yellow arrowbut when the sun comes up later I can take a pic if it matters or not.)

Alan, I have babies all the time, anytime of the year, I just have to go dig them out of the ground. They wouldn’t be that exact green peach though, when I plant seedlings this way I have a 50-50 chance of either white or yellow and sometimes they may be clingstone, others may grow freestone. Theres really no rhyme or reason. I can get you a grafted baby later when the time is right to do so.

EDIT: I wanted to add if you look closely in the center of the trunk and marbled trunk system of old suckers you can see a thin sliver of iron, My grandmother put chunks of metal iron like broken shovel spades or axe heads or railroad ties, anything made of iron, dug into the ground next to the trunk to “feed” the trees. This is the only one that still has iron on it because this is the only tree that was alive when my grandmother was still alive and was able to do that lol. The iron is no longer on the outside of the trunk because of the suckers forced it into the center of the trunk and embedded it. I never knew if it really “fed” the tree with iron minerals but I never removed it nor added iron to the other trees later.

[alan]

When any grafted trees are available, let me know, if you like. I would like my sister’s first fruit tree to be the real McCoy. Great idea to graft it to its own seedlings.

3 of 4 of my other siblings have their own orchards, from Hawaii to CA to New Hampshire, all of which have trees I planted. I planted every tree in the NH orchard when my brother moved there from Alaska. We are a well dispersed clan.

When you have green wood next spring, I’d like a piece just for the fun of trying it in NY.

[Olpea]

Mike,

I had a couple more questions about your long lived peach, please.

Does the tree produce fruit very consistently? Denver is a place that is hard to grow peaches (We have another member from Denver who eventually gave up on peaches.) As I recall, the biggest issue for her was the Denver winter lows would kill the fruit buds.

If this tree produces consistently, it could be another special attribute. Although downtown Denver may not be as cold as the outlining areas. Do you recall what year was the lowest winter temp that this tree still produced?

Also is the fruit completely freestone? Some of the fruit looks freestone, but there are other pictures where the fruit looks to be cut off the pit.

Lastly, does the fruit drop badly when ripe? You mentioned there is typically a lot of fruit on the ground when this tree is ready to harvest. Is that because it’s just impossible to get it all picked (up high) or that it has a high propensity to drop fruit?

Btw, I changed your member status so that you should be able to post as many pictures as you like from now on. Thanks for contributing and sharing the story of this peach tree.

[jujubemulberry]

well with the maury show, you are pretty sure of who the mother is. It is just the dad that is in question.

as for your peach tree, both the mom and dad are unknown. The fruits look like purebred persica and your descriptions corroborate that it is one, but from the deepest crannies of my little brain, it is telling me to test it as a “just in case”.
99.99% of me thinks it is 100% persica, but for some reason have this itch that need to be scratched.
the longest-lived of the genus Prunus is reportedly an interspecific of persica and amygdalus(the millennial prunus trees featured earlier in this thread), which are the ultimate demonstrations of hybrid vigor. If yours is pure persica, then that is amazing, and if it is not, then still equally amazing!

@ColoradoWhitePeach

a matter of fact the tree started another sucker last year and you can see it is about 3 feet tall now

if you’re selling suckers, or even just root cuttings(that have yet to be coaxed into leafing out), i am definitely buying.

[ColoradoWhitePeach]

Olpea, thanks for changing my status so I can post more that’ll un-complicate things for me =)

As for your questions I will answer in order. In Denver we get spring snow storms pretty much every year was into May. Heavy snow that breaks limbs and kills trees from weight and from the cold temperatures. There is also the threat of the early snowstorms when the blossoms have just opened. Those ones will kill the entire crop and I have to really struggle to get maybe 5 peaches for that season. I checked all of my pictures going back to 2001 and it looks like I get a large peach crop every 2-3 years. There is almost always a year in between where I get no fruit at all followed by a HUGE 'bumper" crop of peaches which then comes a “light season”. So as for seasons and peach crops it goes: No peaches one year, heavy peaches next, light peaches after that, then no peaches, heavy peaches etc etc. I told you it got to -14 for three nights in a row and I lost every tree I had in 2003 except for two and this is one of them that survived. Whether it was luck or what, I don’t know.

The fruit is completely freestone. I have other white flesh trees that grow clingstone but this giant greenish peach is easy enough to rip in half apart with your hands when it is ripe and remove the pit. The clingstone peaches the meat will not come off of that seed, even pits that I save have bits of decayed flesh on them. These large green peaches I have a tin of seeds that are completely bald like almonds because absolutely no meat sticks to that pit. Maybe the pic got mixed up and I sent a picture of a clingstone white instead. I had 12 trees at one point it gets confusing!

That brings me to the next question, I am a divorced single father and I have 7 trees at the moment. I get a few hundred pounds of fruit every 2-3 years. I cannot pick it all. One year I think I picked over 750 lbs and I still had 3 trees untouched. It falls. It rots on the ground and ferments and the squirrels and foxes have a great time back there. I do my best to thin every tree out in the spring so the fruit grow large and sweet but sometimes I get branches with 100 smaller peaches because I could not reach. It fdoes not drop fruit until late sept early october.

The large green tree is actually behind the other trees in flowering and in fruiting by about 2 weeks. All my other trees blossom first and then that giant tree blossoms. Then in Mid-early sept I get peaches on all my other trees except the giant. Those will come in the last week of Sept. In the picture of the back yard from my kitchen window I circled the giant tree in green, it is not yet in blossom compared to all the others.

[ColoradoWhitePeach]

Last pictures there show a single yellow flesh clingstone, the way the seed absolutely sticks in that pit and a single yellow clingstomne in a bunch of giant greens…

EDIT *** after looking again I see I posted a FREESTONE yellow peach and claimed it was cling LOL see what I mean about confusing! Sorry.

[ColoradoWhitePeach]

If I get a snowstorm when the tree is in blossom like this it will not kill the blossoms until the temps go lower than 10-15F (for extended time like several days). If the blossoms have fallen and the little fruit are already showing their shape they can make it to an even lower temp for a short time.

The actual trees themselves cannot tolerate a prolonged cold of lower than -5 or -10 and that is why 90% all died when it got to -14F in 2003.

Also if the blossoms are covered in snow they will stay insulated so its better for them to be covered in snow during a chilly spell. BUT they are VERY delicate. I have lost several crops due to snow and cold temps.

Sorry I always edit my posts but I think of more to say after I hit send =D

[alan]

That is interesting. Here in NY we’ve had test winters on my property where a couple nights got below -20 and none of my peach trees died, but if open flowers are exposed to anything below about 25 they are toast. When I first moved here average lows were between -10 and -15F and yet there are commercial peach growers nearby who have been growing peaches for generations and gotten fruit 90% of the time. With the change in weather it’s now apparently going to be rare for temps to get below -10F but we may be getting more killing spring frosts.

If a hardy type peach tree like Red Haven or Madison is fully hardened off in mid-winter it should be able to survive down to -25 F even if the flowers don’t.

I’m not at all saying you are mistaken because trees harden off in mysterious ways and Denver may not be conducive to as hard a dormancy as NY.

On the heavy bearing years do you thin peaches to at least 8" apart?

[ColoradoWhitePeach]

Haha the Maury show and DNA results, someones pulling my leg! =D

-20 and the tree survived? Hmm that must have been one night maybe 2 at the most but definitely not a prolonged spell of 3+ days because a peach tree will not make it past -10. Maybe your tree was packed in snow or half covered in a drift which insulated it. That is how I get peaches some years when all the rest of the blossoms freeze. A select few that were insulated in snow will survive.

Lats night we got 3.5 inches of wet, soggy, heavy snow and it broke my peach tree. The giant 40 year old tree. Yep. Right in half. Thats MY luck, first time in 40 years I get people to notice the tree and not even a week later the damn tree is 40% gone. The entire top half is gone. It’s not 30 feet anymore. Maybe 20. I’m thinking of cutting the entire old trunk off and letting the three suckers growing around the trunk grow into a large bushy tree.

I was VERY upset when I woke up and looked out and saw what happened but after I inspected it I have to say I am happy the tree survived. It cold have been a catastrophic break. I have had it happen to several other trees over the years.

[ColoradoWhitePeach]

I just remembered my grandmother used to wrap the younger peach limbs with apple tree tape, I rememebr the trees looking like mummies as a kid during winter haha. Peach wood is very soft and it breaks EASY with any weight (like heavy fruit or snow) and on top of that they are VERY suceptable to dying in the cold. Even at near 0F, if it stays 0 for a week or 10 days that can seriously harm the younger limbs if not the whole tree. Maybe the altitude makes it different here, I dont know.

[RichardRoundTree]

They can handle the temperature they just cannot handle it while dry. You need to winter water your trees

Sorry to hear about your tree breaking it goes like that sometimes here

[alan]

@ColoradoWhitePeach

a peach tree will not make it past -10.

I don’t believe this is true. There are commercial peach orchards in the northeast where such sequences are common or at least used to be in the '90’s, when I started this business. A well hardened peach tree doesn’t even suffer flower blossom damage until temps get to -13F and the only time I’ve entirely lost a crop was when it reached -20F- all trees survived, but further upstate where it got around -28 there were lots of dead trees.

-15F seems to kill the biggest flower buds on the best positioned parts of the tree, IME, and your crop can come form the smaller shoots you’d normally prune away. This is one reason it is beneficial to wait until bloom to prune peaches after a harsh winter.

I can’t find anything in the literature about the increasing consequence of sequential days of extreme cold, but it’s hard to imagine that it would make that much difference or it would be there. Trees immediately begin to harden off during cold events. There is lots of peach growing in Michigan after all, and not all of it in the most favorable lake-influenced locations.

Anecdotal observations are dicey because how hardened off trees are at any given point depends on preceding temps and how deep you are into winter along with variety, relative health and vigor of trees.

“Damage to the Michigan peach crop is most often due to mid-winter low temperatures, often associated with clear still nights or nights with wind coming from a direction that misses the warming influence of the Great Lakes. In general, when temperatures reach -13 F, damage to the relatively tender peach bud is expected. There is some evidence that a rapid drop in temperature is tougher on fruit buds than a slow decline, because a slow decline allow time the buds to acclimate”.

from Cold damage to peaches | Morning Ag Clips

There are many varieties of peaches that are considered hardy in z5. Subset Zone Temperatures

Each zone subset is separated by 5°F. For Zone 5, the temperature range is:

• Zone 5: The minimum average range of temperatures is -10° to -20°F.
• Zone 5a: This subzone has a minimum average temperature of -15° to -20° F.
• Zone 5b: This subzone has a minimum average temperature of -10° to -15°F.

From Stark Bros. For example, the Reliance peach tree bears peach crops as far north as Canada. Late-blooming varieties, like Intrepid peach, avoid late spring frost zaps that limit fruit production. These peach trees are recommended for the colder parts of zone 5 and are even hardy enough to grow and bear in zone 4.

And… https://ag.umass.edu/sites/ag.umass.edu/files/fact-sheets/pdf/peaches.pdf

[oscar]

amazing peach tree and story. Definitly worth spreading around/keeping alive.

the golden/green gages are really nice to. Love those. They are likely from the reine claude “group” of plums
https://www.vriendenvanhetoudefruit.nl/wp-content/pruimen/reine_claudes.htm
(use google translate)

could be a seedling or a number of varieties or sports in that group.

i do however think your peach is a peach and not a hybrid greengage/peach.

Plums and peaches don’t interbreed readily. There is genetic variation within peaches though. so a “x” coloured peach giving greener coloured offspring is not unusual.

What is unusual though is the age and other atributes of your peach tree!

[ColoradoWhitePeach]

EDIT***** sorry I had to edit this post twice because I am still only getting 3 posts per day which is freaking awful lol.

Alan,
I am definitely not educated in growing peaches and I do not know the exact technical specs, so I will take your word for it. I just go by what I have learned over these 40+ years that I had been watching my grandmother and growing my myself. Trial and error is the way I do things. LOL I didn’t even learn to clone until maybe 6 years ago and that was thanks to the cannabis industry =D I wasn;t aware that peaches can survive such brutal temperatures because the bark and the wood is just so soft and weak. The tips of limbs die off just when we have a few nights near 0. I lost every single tree in my yard except for 2 (total 10) in 2003 when we had -14 temps along with 3 feet of snow for three consecutive nights.

That being said, I appreciate any info you pass on! Thanks!

Oscar, the same goes for you, I appreciate your comment very much as I am not aware of genetics and offspring etc - like I said up there^^^ I just go by what I have learned over the last 40 years, trial and error. I’d love to know more so here I am. I like this web site, I don’t know why I just barely found it now in 2021 =)

And Richard I am looking that up (winter watering) as I type, thank you. I never really thought about watering in the winter haha. Pipes burst around here lol But it makes sense I mean dry would snaps.

[ColoradoWhitePeach]

These pictures hurt but I am thankful the tree is alive.

[ColoradoWhitePeach]

Full of great branches for cloning/grafting and also blossoms. Thats the way it goes growing peaches. Every other year I get a large branch taken off from the weight of snow or peaches.

[Drew51]

I think this tree needs to be tested in Michigan. I can volunteer for that!
Yeah that’s some tree. I only like growing the unusual. I’m certainly interested.
I like to grow Indian Free for it’s red flesh. So different! Jefferson grew it. Blood cling is awesome too. And the few others around. Arctic Glo nectarine has full red flesh. Indian Free varies from no redness to completely red depending on the year. Taste the same a cranberry peachy flavor. I crossed Indian Free and Arctic Glo and had three seedlings but I lost them. I need to do it again.

[jujubemulberry]

sorry to hear about your tree-- it is as if we all jinxed it as soon as we all posted about it!
the thing about self-rooted clones is that it can dieback to the ground and regnerate as the same desirable clone. And really, really cool that it is capable of doing that, since peaches(on their own roots) are not as inclined to sucker as other drupes.