Salish summer is a white peach too, it’s my best performer. You could graft it to a peach pit sprout next winter if you pop a few from this spring’s grocery fruit.
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oh good thinking. heck yeah
I’ve had terrible results trying to store dormant peach scions. I don’t think I’ve ever successfully grafted with it. I tried a couple this weekend. I’ve done well with dormant plum onto mature peach tree.
I have successfully budded peach.
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It is a bit tricky to store. I have a “dorm fridge” I use pretty much exclusively to store scionwood. I hardly ever open it, and it’s in the basement, so it doesn’t use a lot of electricity. I keep it right at 32F where it barely freezes the scionwood.
I generally cut the scionwood in early February here. I try to cut it on a decently warm day when the sun is out and the sap is flowing. I stick it in a cooler with ice and put it in the fridge as soon as I get home.
Since the wood is frozen, it can get freezer burn (i.e. dry out) if allowed to stay frozen too long. That’s why I take it out of the fridge and warm it for an hour or so at room temperature every month or month and a half. Then it goes straight back in the fridge to be frozen at 32F again.
I tried storing peach wood in our regular food fridge, but it just never worked very well for me. It would always seem to start bud swell in the fridge (or even push green growth). But allowing the peach wood to barely freeze, keeps the buds very dormant and the peach wood in very good shape for a long time.
I’ve even had good luck with this method in the few times I’ve received wood from others, with two exceptions.
One was when I didn’t have a lot of experience grafting or storing wood and Scott sent me some scionwood of a peach cultivar I couldn’t find anywhere else.
That was a waste of his time and mine because I really didn’t know what I was doing. After that failure, I really didn’t think I could have much success grafting dormant peach wood at the time.
So I asked Scott if he would send me green wood express shipping, if I paid the expensive shipping, to which he agreed (btw, thanks Scott for all your generosity to me over the years) That worked, and I was able to get the cultivar growing on my trees. I’m pretty certain that variety was Clayton, which I’m still growing. I just looked on my orchard map and currently have 14 trees of it.
Over the years Scott has sent me Early Crawford, Rochester, and Oldmixon Free. Early Crawford and Rochester weren’t good enough for me to keep (i.e. not good for selling) but I still have Oldmixon Free (currently two trees).
I don’t know how Scott gets all these unobtainable varieties. Maybe through the Davis repository?
Since then, I don’t graft green wood (except for making copies of my own peach trees via fall budding). On the rare occasion I request scion wood for a variety I can’t obtain anywere else, I request dormant peach wood. The only other time it has failed me is when a member unintentionally sent me dead wood, dead on arrival.
The member sent me some live dormant wood the next year and it successfully grafted.
When I have to get peach dormant scionwood in the mail. I always graft it to some shoots on a mature peach tree. It just seems like the grafts are almost 100% on a mature peach tree, vs. grafting to a young peach seedling. Since the goal is to get the variety on my property (again these are varieties I can’t get anywhere else) I try to do everything possible to make sure it’s a success.
Another thing I do is use this grafting tool. I’m not good with making grafting cuts with a knife. I can barely sharpen a knife, unless I use a profiler sharpener. It seems to take some artistic talent, to which I have none. So I use machines to fill in where I lack artistry.
Here is a thread on the grafting tool I use. It has some issues, but there are some good hacks in this thread for repair.
Once I have the variety on site, I can easily make copies of it, via fall budding.
However, two of the last three times I’ve gotten some dormant peach scionwood in the mail, the grafts took to mature peach trees, but the whole trees died for no apparent reason. Sometimes that happens, when you have 700 peach trees. But it did seem weird that those trees died for no apparent reason, when they had scions grafted to them.
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Thanks for your response, and sensible advice from experience. It makes sense. Around what time of season or conditions do you graft dormant peach wood to mature trees?
I’m impressed with the modifications you made to that Zenport tool. I’m pretty confident with my grafting cuts, when I’m giving my best effort. Sometimes I get more sloppy as I get tired, hot and/or sore in inconvenient positions and conditions - but those cases probably aren’t well suited to such a tool anyway.
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So for me, I like it when I see several days of highs in the 80s before I graft dormant peach wood in the springtime. Other people graft at much lower temps, and Scott seems to have it figured out how much sun you need vs. temperature.
But for me a quick rule of thumb I follow is the first time projected highs look to be in the 80s is when I graft dormant cuttings in the springtime. If it’s seedlings I’m grafting, I make sure the soil never gets completely dry. No need to water daily, but if there is no rain, I might give them a deep watering once a week.
If it gets too dry no kind of graft will take on peach trees.
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Those temperatures don’t happen until summer here. Late June or July often.
Ahhh. Well, as late as it seems, I might try grafting then, as long as I could freeze the dormant peach scionwood. I keep a thermometer in my dorm fridge, so that it’s right at the freezing point.
Mind you, I’ve never tried dormant scion grafting that late, but I think the way I store dormant peach wood, it would still be good that late.
Others here have no problem grafting peach in cooler weather (i.e. earlier) but I prefer warmer temps.
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All that is needed is temps on the wood itself in the 65-75F or so range for a period. There are many ways to get that and it differs in different climates.
If the highs are 80s you will have cooler temps AM and PM which will callous the wood. But if you are in a cooler climate look for some sunny days with at least 60’s and you will have your wood in the 65-75F range for a good spell of the day.
Yes I got some of them through Davis. I also had a friend who was a regular at the CRFG exchanges and I would send him my wish lists. There were (and probably still are) a great many varieties at those exchanges. Plus I had other random sources. It was a lot of fun to try to track down various old peaches. But these days I’m back to the more modern ones, I don’t have too many of the older varieties left.
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Disappointment in my orchard. Our Rochester peach tree, which had been dying, is dead. Miller’s, the nursery we bought it from in 2008 was bought out by Stark Bros., and the Rochester variety was discontinued. It is weird. The Rochester peach seems nowhere to be found in the US, but it is still widely grown in the UK.
Our tree had been in decline for several years. I’ve failed to successfully graft another Rochester tree for several years (I learned first hand that peach trees are much more finicky than apple trees), so, last year, I decided to ask a highly recommended professional grafter for help. Only after I contacted him did I discover that he hadn’t grafted peaches before. But he was confident. Because of some family and other issues, he couldn’t bud-graft last summer. He apologized and said he was willing to try again this summer if I could supply him with more scionwood. Since the tree did not survive, I no longer have scionwood to give him.
Last summer, I saved out the seeds from three Rochester peaches that we quite enjoyed, but I messed up in caring for them and they got moldy and are worthless. Had I successfully planted them, they would not have been true Rochester trees, but they might have been close.
Last August I did my own grafting attempt yet again. Although one of my two grafts looks promising and the other doesn’t look entirely dead, I’m starting to get worried. There is still time for them to grow and prosper, but neither has yet moved from the fuzzy stage to the leafing out stage. I’ll keep waiting.
The ARS GRIN peach depository, maintained by UC Davis, has it, so I’ve just put in a request for scionwood for 4 old peach varieties, including Rochester. I know the warning that “NPGS germplasm is not available for individual, home, or community gardening, or for home schooling or K-12 public or private school projects,” but I’ve received scionwood from both Davis and Geneva before. Will we see if I’m successful in making my case this time.
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https://fps.ucdavis.edu//treeprice.cfm
Pretty expensive… $150.00 miniumn order + 10 ~ 25% shipping fee.
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Sorry to hear you lost your Rochester John.
I had grown several grafts of it and they fruited for a couple years. But the fruit was stringy to my palate, so I didn’t feel it was an acceptable peach to sell.
I don’t have the grafts anymore, else I’d send you some wood, since it’s so difficult to obtain the germplasm for that variety.
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Thanks for the warning, but UC Davis’s Foundation Plant Services is a separate program from ARS-GRIN. None of the peach varieties I am interested in is available for sale by FPS. If I qualify, I would be sent scionwood at no charge. I was successful several years ago, so I’m hoping.
Like clockwork @DennisD 14 days for bud break. Only vegetative buds. I appricate your input greatly.
Redhaven on lovell 
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Definitely looks encouraging. Reserving all scion energy for vegetative buds to grow makes a big difference, good job! Looks like you got the timing just right. I find peach to be the more difficult type to graft.
Dennis
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Thank you kind Sir, for sharing your knowledge, it really means a lot to me. Hopefully others will read this and apply your knowledge for greater sucess rate.
You’re more than welcome. I must say that I glean so much from other members who are often so gracious and sharing so I just try to pass it on. Helping others realizing the joy of success is always an inspiration.
Dennis
Kent, Wa
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I tried buying Lovell seed to use as rootstock. Source: sheffields.com/. I think about 1$ per seed all told. Im striking out on germination for a bunch too…
Anyway I am impatient. Here is a sugar pearls apricot on a 2 monthish old Lovell seedling. I have been experimenting with very young seedling rootstocks and it seems they will callus and join with chip buds at a very young age and within 14 days or so. Have not yet had a success but it seems feasible… should one cut growth above the bud in this case or let the rootstock grow out a few more months?
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That seems like a good price based on shipping. I checked ebay they are a lot more expensive there. It almost makes me want to grow a few lovell trees, if for nothing else but for pits.