Peach x Cherry Interspecific hybrid: is it possible?

I wonder if crossing Indian Free Peach with my peachmond then backcrossing it with another peach would result in Curl-free peaches?

Eta is even faster growing than Theta.

Maybe next year, or the year after I’d graft hazelnut, thank you for the offer.

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Hi @Palmer. Thanks for the comment and info. I ordered Nanaimo but they were out. Will look into the scion. I thought it was patented.

I also had Indian Free but it only grew to 3 feet tall in 4 years then Died. I wonder if it was a bad rootstock or bad spot in the yard. I have a Surefure cherry in that spot now. It seems fine. Also Last year I planted Kreibich Nectarine and Frost peach at the same time, next to each ither. The Kreibich had some leaf curl . The Frost had none. Too soon to know how they will do in the long run.

Like others say, Indian Free would be great to for hybridizing, given the sterile pollen.

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@itheweatherman, what is the bloom time for the peachmond, and are they freeze resistant? Here, peaches are at the early end for bloom. Any earlier and blooming trees would die, like most apricots do.

Early to Mid-March.
Flower buds are freeze resistant. And fruit can tolerate temperatures in the mid 20s.

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I certainly will, maybe next year I’d get cherry scion and graft it.

I do not have hard data to go from right now, only some vague notes I scribbled during a lecture 7 or 8 years ago. I do not believe a 50/50 cherry/peach is possible/likely.
I believe the two species are too dissimilar to breed without using a bridge. My notes suggest that Prunus simonii may be needed to cross cherry with other stone fruits, and Prunus cerasifera acts as a bridge for peach and apricot. I doubt you will have much luck without having those 2 species in the mix. Getting the ripening phases to line up is problematic, and probably why the Zaiger folk have to make 10k crosses for a single viable offspring.

I am not surprised that Nadia is descended from a black plum, since Santa Rosa is known to contain both P. cerasifera and P. simonii. Perhaps you might have better luck if you begin with successful P. avium hybrids, and back-cross with cherry pollen. I think if you manage to breed 3/8 sweet cherry, 3/8 peach, and 1/4 plum into a fruit, you should call it a win. That being said, I wish you the best of luck. I am toying with the idea of crossing Tlor Tsirian apricot with some of my hardy hybrid plums to see if I can make a zone 4 pluot.

p.s. General Hydroponics coco-tek is probably the best thing I know of for germinating difficult seeds It is quite resistant to rot and mold if kept clean.
also, here is a link I found a while back with compatibility and relative bloom times of some popular cherries.
https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/sites/catalog/files/project/pdf/pnw604.pdf
I hope it is useful.

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Because peach and cherry (assuming you mean P. avium sweet cherry) are not directly compatible this would need to be overcome by chromosome doubling. In a normal diploid plant, offspring is produced from a haploid set of chromosomes from each parent. These two haploids fuse to become the new diploid offspring. If the relationship between the parents is too distant causing the two haploid contributions to not pair well together to form a new diploid you will need to create tetraploid versions of the parents so that the haploid contribution from each is twice what it would normally be which means the offspring would receive two full sets of chromosomes from each parent instead of one set from each. This way the incompatibles between the parents are overcome. This sort of combination was the origin story for some modern plant species and can still be used more intentionally today.