New to the site. My pops has a small vinyard in Ulster county, NY. I cleared out an acre to put a few fruit trees for a hobby orchard and accidentally ordered 50+ fruit trees this season with 14 already in the ground from last spring. Hopefully i can make it a U-pick gig, spread the name of the vinyard while im at it … This page has been SO helpful while i was researching the right trees and different root stock. Anyway, i still have a few questions im hoping i can get answered. 1) would I be able to bench graft a b118 rootstock with apple scions before i put em in the ground? Cummins gave me 50$ for a mixup so I ordered a buncha B.118 on the way, or should i just put them in the ground and graft next season? 2) Does anyone have experience with desiree peach in new york? Im in zone 5b and wondering if early blooming, California type peaches ever make it past late frosts
And finally, 3) how exciting was it to plant your first orchard, because im literally checking my invoice every day.
Hi Ben, I don’t live in New York but I do grow Desiree Peaches (one tree). I believe they are a Rutgers introduction so I don’t think they would be considered a Californian peach, plus the chill hours is 850. My tree will be 4th year in the ground in 2019 and was bought at Cummins. 2nd year in the ground I got 3 or 4 peaches, 3rd year I got 8 or 9 peaches (actually about 4, the rest went to the squirrels). I have bad frost issues the last two years and Desiree did better than all of the trees I planted that same year including Encore which is supposed to be cold/frost hardy. It does bloom earlier than some other varieties I grow but only by 4 to 5 days and the bloom start time is the same as many varieties. I am located in the Piedmont area of Virginia. Below is a picture of the tree I took yesterday:
Yes, thanks. Nice tree. A friend was telling me about bacterial spots problems with rich may and silver gem (californian peaches) here in NY and i guess i got mixed up and threw desiree in there as well. Glad to hear it doesnt bloom too early. How do you like the quality of fruit?
Either should be fine, assuming your rootstock is big enough this year. I prefer to bench graft- I feel like I can manipulate the wood better that way- but I do both and don’t worry much about it either way. I’m no expert, YMMV.
The one other thing I’d say is that B.118 might give you some pretty big/tall trees for a U-pick orchard. Did you consider less vigorous stocks too?
I thought the peach tasted okay, better than store bought but I have had better. Last few years have been really wet in Virginia so a dry season might produce better peaches.
@ mycorneroftheearth
It is defiantly easier to bench graft , than to do it in the field.
I usually keep new trees in a nursery situation for a year or so. So I can baby them.
But , if you can give them proper care in their permanent location, that would work.
You have little to lose by grafting bench grafting them first…
Any that don’t take can be regrafted next year.
Yes, some of my best eating apples are going to be on G11 and 890. Still experimenting. I was hoping to prune the B118 to give them a low lying open crown… but i didnt even think about ease of picking. Thank you. I might throw the B118 in the back for fruit stand use and get another rootstock for the U-pick area.
Hey Ben, I think we spoke briefly with you and your Dad before touring Geneva last summer. I bench grafted 116 B.118 from Cummins last spring with a 97% survival rate of the rootstock and 65% success rate for the grafts. My preference would be to bench graft over grafting to a rootstock growing in a nursery bed or permanent location simply for ease of grafting. My grafting success rate was lower than I would have liked with the B.118, but I did bud graft a lot of those rootstocks later in the season with bud wood from Geneva, and hope to see good results from that this spring. That may be another option for you, plant the rootstocks now and bud them in late summer. Orders for bud wood from Geneva usually have to be submitted by around July 15.
Reisinger’s Orchard from Schuyler County was selling Desiree peaches at their farmers market stall last year, so it’s at least doing well up here north of you in the Finger Lakes.
Wow. Yeah, checking out the catalog now and its it’s quite extensive. Thanks for the heads up, im gonna try bud grafting later in the season. I have an old apple tree on the property that might well be a century old. I only saw it produce once, years ago. Its pretty sickly. Would it be too late in the season to take a cutting off that tree to try to bench graft it to the rootstock? I might take a few b118s and dedicate it to that tree in the upcoming weeks.
Do you remember our discussion? Was it by kerhonkson by any chance?
Well, I’m in Cold Brook, NY, north of Utica, and I still have 2 feet of snow on the ground, so I haven’t even done my winter pruning yet. Not sure how far along you are in Ulster County, but if the tree you want to take scion from is still dormant you certainly can harvest scion from it now and graft this spring. If not, you can bud it later this summer. If the tree is stressed, it’s probably pushing water sprouts and they make good scion wood.
Our conversation was brief, and would have been at the Geneva Research station during their summer tour for the public. Your Dad introduced himself and brought you in on the conversation because of our common interest in apples. I’m guessing it was you guys due to your location, your dad’s interest in vino and yours in apple. I had grafted over 600 apple trees which I planted out in a nursery bed while we clear the orchard site.
Nope! Never even knew they gave summer tours. But hell, now im inclined to go. And if i see a guy named andy there, ill give him a home grafted mystry tree!
But seriously. Thanks for all the pointers. Didnt know geneva sends out bud grafts. And you are right, the old tree is laiden in water shoots. Super excited to get that on a rootstock and findout which variety it is. Musta been great cuz its planted right by the house which was build in 1870 with more than 200 acres at the time.
… This page has been SO helpful while i was researching the right trees and different root stock. Anyway, i still have a few questions im hoping i can get answered. 1) would I be able to bench graft a b118 rootstock with apple scions before i put em in the ground? Cummins gave me 50$ for a mixup so I ordered a buncha B.118 on the way, or should i just put them in the ground and graft next season? 2) Does anyone have experience with desiree peach in new york? Im in zone 5b and wondering if early blooming, California type peaches ever make it past late frosts 
