Chill hours, how much do they matter?

[Olpea]

@castanea

The life span of commercial peaches in the US is very short because growers expect very high productivity and they can only get it for 15-20 years before they burn out their trees. Peach trees in China can be productive for hundreds of years. American growers don’t care because by their standards the Chinese trees are not producing enough fruit each year and of course any fruit produced after you’re dead doesn’t count at all to an American grower. And China is not an outlier.

It’s true commercial growers in the U.S. push trees hard, but China also has intense peach production. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rT-2HId7Fg

The trees hundreds of years old in China are the result of species differences (i.e. the old Chinese trees are not prunus persica, but rather prunus mira, or prunus kansuensis). Cultivated persica trees in China only last about 10 years, according to Desond Layne in the above link.

About a year ago, there was a discussion about the “wild” Chinese peach trees on the fruit forum.

Aging of a peach tree

I know that generally peach is not long living tree. My is about 8 years old now, and if not counting this year “no crop” issue(due to the weather) it is doing OK and still put some significant grows this year. My question is, when peach tree getting old - how do you know it? Does it slowly decrease production, or suddenly dies? If it is production issue, can the branch be grafted on, or may be it is old root stock you can graft on, or the roots get weak and the tree just has to be replaced?