Well my Precious apricot/almond hybrid graft has taken and is looking good…
I am excited about it for more than one reason…
Firstly for its apricot fruit and almond nut combination…
And secondly it could/should be later bloom or more late spring frost hardy therefore more dependably productive than the common apricots in my region…
Thirdly, if my apricots will ever finally hurry up and make their once in a decade crop, or if some of my younger more reliable apricots will hurry up and produce, I plan to use this Precious hybrid as an interstem to graft to apricot seedlings and then graft Javids Iranian Almond to it… So that the almond will be on a longer lived rootstock than peach and therefore hopefully be a longer lived almond tree… What do yall think of that?
Currently i have plenty peach seeds and seedlings to graft these things to, so I grafted Precious to the almond using almond as an interstem to peach… But i hope to be using precious as the interstem once i get apricot seedlings going! Plus grow precious for production too… hey, maybe I could also use this interstem method for grafting peach to apricot rootstock for a longer lived reliably compatible peach tree??
I bought two of the Ukrainian cold hardy almonds this year. East coast is by far not an almond area, but still wanted to give these a try. The Javed is another that I was going to try, but it was out of stock. On that topic, the mormon we were discussing also has an edible almond like pit. It is small and a little sweet. That’s why mormon is sometimes called sweet pit.
Oh ok that us interesting with there being ukrainian selections available! Id love to keep track of how they do for you with the spring frosts and everything! Hopefully they prove very sucvessful!
I am trying to gather types that should survive spring frosts and am very hopeful with the new types of peach that have had very good reports.
Yeah I have mormon and montrose, they seem to have a decent frost survival reputation and so im excited to hear that you have had actual success with mormon! Yeah those sweet pits are exciting too if we overcome the frosts and have both fruit and sweet pits that will be a real success! Im hoping that between mormon, montrose, and now precious that we can see some hopeful results!!
Id be happy to trade you Javids scion some time if youd like. Its a fun challenge to graft different ones and swap and such. I have a nice javids about 6 ft tall as well as some new grafts.
I’d love to see what does best here and then try doing some pollen crosses and plant lots of seed out and see if a new cultivar with the successful gene good fruit and sweet pit can be achieved!!
I got primavera and bounty. They are supposed to be late flowering and cold hardy almonds. We will see. Has the Javed set anything at all yet? It’s supposed to be another late blooming cold hardy one. Englands in kentucky says it does great for him.
Those ukraine selections sound very good!
My Javid I have sort of slowed down by taking scion for trades and grafts. Its only a 2 year old graft. It might set a crop in another year if I let it grow on out this summer. But I expect it to do good based on Cliff and another grower in ILL who has also had very good success! I just grafted 5 new ones hopefully they all take. I plan to have about a dozen eventually. I am planting more peach seed this week for future grafts of it and these new frost bloom hardy peach types.
Precious almond/apricot on Javids a couple days ago. (Its grown another inch since the pic). Looking good! Its one of those new 2021 grafts i’m most excited about! (I got this scion from Mr Purvis)
Here is his description:
Precious: “An almond-apricot cross, coming from a 100-year-old tree in southern Ontario province. Sweet kernels. Tree is self-fruitful, hardy into the –40s F., spreading growth habit. Fruit is small to medium sized, thick skin, sweet flesh. Resistant to late spring frosts and bears well in Quebec, eastern England, and SW Idaho. Does best in humid or subhumid climates.”
hey, maybe I could also use this interstem method for grafting peach to apricot rootstock for a longer lived reliably compatible peach tree??