Downsizing Peach Varieties

My only current experience is with Lovell and soon to be Bailey. Keep us updated on the peach seedling/grafting. On not an expert on that stuff…but again, I do feel like the grafts on our peaches have been one of our issues…or at least contributes to the relatively high failure rate of our peach trees. I might be totally off base but some of our best mature trees have clean grafts and sturdy trunks with little to no signs of seeping, canker, etc.

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First, I respect my commercial brother’s experience, in this endeavor we call commercial peach growing.

We don’t have quite the cold weather here, which is more challenging for sure. That’s why I respect maineorchard and folks in those zones.

A few comments from someone further south.

I would never think P. Americana a satisfactory rootstock to overcome some of these problems. Putting peach on plum will simply exacerbate problems of peach in almost all locales, not reduce them.

Lovell and Bailey are good rootstocks for most locations (excluding some locales which have various nematodes). According to the latest research, they are not the most hardy. Guardian gets this award lately. Just sayin’

I doubt peach grafted to peach seedlings are going to avoid graft union issues. Most named common peach seedling rootstocks are fully compatible for named peach scion varieties. I’ve routinely grafted named varieties to seedling rootstocks for years, and not noticed any difference compared to named varieties grafted on named rootstocks, like Bailey, Halford, Lovell, etc.

Based upon my experience of fellow peach growers in cold climates, the biggest issue is perennial canker. It’s relentless in cold climates.

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