Since most Peach trees are self fertile what are the chances that a peach tree grown from seed and not grafted will have similar characteristics to the parent?
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I have yet to try it, but I’ve heard good things about growing peaches from seed. They’ll be different from their parents for sure, but not to the extent of something like an apple or pear. Permies has an excellent thread on this. https://permies.com/t/95796/Seedling-peach-tree-success-proof
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All the ones I have grown have been a bit smaller, other than that they are good. Some peach rootstocks that fruited were not very tasty (small, super fuzzy, and watery) but all the seeds from my own fruits have been good so far.
I finally have some apple seeds I planted many years ago fruiting. I was expecting they would be small and not very tasty based on what I read, but none are very small and all taste pretty good. Since most commercial apple orchards use crabs for pollination my guess is most of those seeds are crab crosses which could be the reason for the small apple seedlings.
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If it’s truly self fertilized, the seedling should be similar to the parent in my experience. If you have more than one self-fertile peach variety they can cross pollinate with the others. In my younger days I experimented with crossing Redhaven with J. H. Hale, the latter used as the mother since it’s not self fertile. I grew out several trees and selected two to grow out. One produced an average size mid-season freestone peach with good color, flavor and shape. However it was a weak grower and producer. It got the axe. LOL The other one was an extremely large size early season clingstone peach with excellent color and flavor. It grew the largest peaches I’ve ever produced. It’s major defects, to me, were it being a clingstone and a pronounced tip on the blossom end that was easily damaged after picking. The tree died after about 14 years due to collar rot.
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I got a bag full of different stone fruit seeds that I am about to bury in the nursery bed made up of play sands like the largest galaxy fruit that I bought from the Asian Market, Very Cherry plum and Aprium that looked like Black Velvet from Trader’s Joe, large and sweet apricot seeds from Costco.
Tony
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Did you use seeds from your orchard’s apples or from commercial apples when you grew seedlings? What are the chances of getting a seedling apple report in a few years along with the “year’s experience” report?
It was a long time ago but I think all the seeds came from heirloom apple orchards. I reported on a few of them last year, one I liked a lot and named it “Pineapple Gold”. I had a Pineapple Gold today which was bug-bitten so ripened early, it was a very nice apple. One of the others is super crispy, but it has some skin issues so is probably not a keeper.
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Many of early settlers brought apple seeds with them from Europe. As they moved down from Philadelphia into VA, NC, SC, TN, KY, etc., they collected even more seeds. When they settled they generally planted seedling orchards. Most of their apples were for cider, so oddball types just added to the flavor. From those seedlings and by swapping scion wood with neighbors, they selected apples for fresh eating, cooking, apple sauce, etc. That’s where the legend of Johnny Appleseed came from. LOL
My ancestors are prime examples. I have a g-g-grandfather who had an orchard and fruit tree nursery in the mountains of Georgia. My father and I collected scions from some of his still living trees about 30 years ago. Back then I was scared to death that some of his old varieties would go extinct if I didn’t propagate them. There were Park’s Pippin, Green Pippen, several varieties of Limbertwigs, and Kinnard’s Choice trees that were still alive.The internet changed all of that. All of those old varieties are now available to most anyone.
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