I purchased a bare-root Autumn Rose Peach from OGW in March 2020. It leafed out nicely this spring, and has some small peaches on it already, which is very exciting! But, the tiny fruits are kind of squashy, and don’t look like “normal” peaches. They look more like they might be donut peaches?
So I tried to google autumn rose peaches, to see if this is just how they normally look, and the only thing I could find was an old Houzz post from about a decade ago (https://www.houzz.com/discussions/1464054/autumn-rose-peach) where the poster ALSO thought her autumn rose peaches were mislabeled donut peaches. In that post, though, no one else had fruited their autumn rose peaches yet, and no one had posted any pictures to the post, so it didn’t help me find out whether my peaches were mislabeled or not.
Has anyone grown Autumn Rose peaches? Do the young peaches look kind of squashy? Or do you think my tree was mislabled?
Also, I didn’t spray my peach tree in the fall, because the autumn rose is supposedly peach leaf curl resistant. But my tree has some peach leaf curl this year (not so much that I’m worried the tree or the fruits will die, but enough that I pick a handful of curled leaves off the tree every few days, just to get rid of them). If you’ve grown autumn rose peaches, does this seem like a normal amount of curl to you? Or would it be more evidence of mislabeling? I live in SE Pennsylvania, zone 7A, if that’s helpful.
I’ll definitely email OGW. I was just hoping that maybe this is what other autumn roses look like, especially since it’s too late for OGW to send me another one this year, anyway.
Here’s patent info for Autumn Rose Peach: https://patents.google.com/patent/USPP7990P
It’s not a donut peach: “Form.–Uniformity – Broadly ovate to nearly globose in lateral aspect. Nearly globose in axial aspect. Symmetry – Symmetrical.”
Sigh, now I am even more confused! the patent info you shared states that the autumn rose was discovered in the San Joaquin valley in California, and that the fruit “is distinguished by producing a large red fruit, the flesh of which is of a light amber-yellow coloration.” But according to OGW, the autumn rose peach that they sell was developed in New Zealand and has burgundy red and white flesh. Autumn Rose Peach - One Green World. The picture from OGW doesn’t look squashy like a donut peach, but it’s not that great of a picture, either, so who knows?
I emailed OGW with the pictures from my peach tree, so we’ll see what they say.
Update! I emailed OGW, and they said that it likely is a donut peach, and they issued me a store credit for the cost of the tree. Which is good, I guess, but I’m bummed that I’ll be two years down the hole by the time I can order a new tree. And I’m also bummed that I’ll have to pay shipping for whatever new tree I get. Wah. I also think its so interesting that the ONLY other post about autumn rose peaches that I could find had the exact same problem as me. Especially since it was from almost 10 years ago, and OGW apparently is still mislabeling donut peaches as autumn roses. Which means that I’m not likely to try to order another autumn rose from OGW next year, cause I’d be too worried that I’d get another mystery tree, so no autumn roses for me
I’ll take mamauang’s advice and leave the mystery donut in to see if it’s something tasty. So maybe at least it won’t be a total wash.
This is a bit of a side-topic, but is it definitely too late to graft this year? I’ve never tried grafting before, so I don’t know. But I was thinking that if anyone out there DOES have autumn rose peaches, maybe I could finagle a scion and try to graft it to my donut peach, so that I can at least try the autumn rose sometime in the future.
I was surprised you have to pay for shipping. Some nurseries don’t charge customers anything when it clearly their mistakes.
I hope your donut turns out to be Saturn donut peach. It is very good , sweet, white donut peach.
Yours is a zone warmer. I don’t know how warm it is for you now. We just have our first day of 70 F and the first stretch of good weather to graft peaches in zone 6a here.
You will need dormant peach scionwood for spring grafting.
If you wait until mid or late summer, you can try budding, another kind of grafting. Budding is a good way to graft peaches, too.
Look up T-budding or Chipping budding on the forum, there are several threads with clear pictures and instructions for you to learn from.
Haha, you just sent me down a youtube rabbit hole of grafting and budding tutorials! Honestly, I don’t think I feel confident enough to try it
I emailed OGW again, and they added the cost of shipping on to the store credit, so at least that should be covered when I order a new tree next spring. Since I don’t have much faith in their autumn roses, I think I want to try a spice zee nectaplum next year, instead. It sounds delicioous, and it has red leaves, which I think would look pretty, and would make a nice symmetry to the red-leafed hollywood plum I have on the other side of my yard
I also looked at the various types of donut peaches that OGW offers, and I hope my mystery peach is a saturn, too! My peach has pink flowers, which rules out it being a galaxy peach. And the OGW listing for the sweet bagel peach makes it seem like the sweet bagel has a ton of leaf curl, and my mystery peach doesn’t really have that much curl, so I’m hoping I didn’t get the sweet bagel. I’ll update after the fruit ripens on my mystery peach to let y’all know how it goes.
I tasted my first mystery peach today! It was a white fleshed donut peach, very sweet, with red fuzzy skin. The rest of the peaches on the tree are not ripe yet, this was the very first one to ripen, so I’d say the overall ripening time for my mystery peach will be end of July or first week of August. I did not spray it at all over the fall or this spring, and it appears very healthy. There was minimal PLC and I can’t see any other disease issues with the tree. It’s also fairly precocious. I planted it in March 2020, and pruned it back fairly hard at planting (to knee height) and again in spring 2021(to about 4ft), and it’s already at least 8 feet high and bearing pretty nicely. (I know I made the mistake of not thinning it out, but I wasn’t sure if I was gonna keep it and wanted to see how it developed).
Any guesses as to what kind of peach it is?
To be honest, I’m not even too sad about getting the wrong peach, cause this one is pretty tasty. So long as it stays low-maintenance, I’ll probably keep it
