What you describe sounds like an approach graft, so yes it’s been done. At least it is a variation of one.
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I think I’ve done something similar. I was sent a very skinny piece of scion wood, so skinny I didn’t think I could graft it with any method I was familiar with. I scraped some wood off the scion, about 3 inches, just down to the green. I scraped 3 inches of bark off my branch, again, just down to the green. I pushed them together very tightly and the graft took with no problems and looks strong. However, I cannot speak as to if it is viable long-term, but short-term it seems good.
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Guess I missed a golden opportunity to attempt an approach graft 1 year ago. Wish I had known because it would have been an interesting experiment! I have had no luck grafting peach trees so I wouldn’t bet on it working out.
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Peaches are hard to graft. With the approach graft, the scion is still attached to mother plant while also attached to the rootstock. Not meant to use on peaches, but you could if scion plant was in a container you could move. and you had the branch close enough to do one for sure. Still may not have accomplished your goal, as angle may be bad? i never did any, I’m going to try it in the spring on potted figs. All my figs eventually will be Franken fig trees. So many fantastic varieties, the only way i can try more.
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Yes, Drew, my experiments last summer worked just like you described. For various reasons I made about fifteen approach grafts with peaches. With all components on full life support, there was no time pressure on the graft. Both plants just grow happily until temperature and conditions are right to promote callousing. After 4-5 weeks I cut the scion loose from its rootstock. That was the biggest shock moment. The scion would usually falter a bit, and then take off. I thought maybe a spray of Wilt-Stop would help when I chopped off the scion’s rootstock, though I never tried it.
OK you inspired me to try it with peaches. i have some seedlings in containers I wish to transfer to one tree. Crosses I made. I will try it now for sure. One seedling is in ground and I would like to graft the other two on it. Any i don’t like I can top work it later.
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Can you say what variety of peach tree this is, and where you got it? You mention early in the thread that you have Redhaven scions, but I don’t think you mentioned what tree this is (unless I missed it)?
The tree should throw out lots of growth next spring/summer. I would expect some growth somewhere on the side with the void to throw something out because of all that sunlight exposure, but it may be on top side of the wood and you will have to do something with it.
I have one small concern that the weather may not be optimum to prune your peach tree severely. It’s -9F here this morning. Severe pruning can sometimes kill young trees if done before harsh low temps. I generally prune my youngest peach trees in the fall. Your tree may be fine, but I have killed some young peach trees from pruning shock in cold weather. For fall pruning, I always prune my youngest peach trees first, so they have the most time to recover from the shock before winter. Again you may be fine. Your tree isn’t real small, and your temps are probably warmer in NJ than my locale, but it can be risky to prune severely right before a cold spell.
I know it’s a little late now, but for future reference (and others who might read this thread) I probably wouldn’t have cut that scaffold off in my orchard, given the size of the tree. It was more or less a perpendicular V, and depending on the variety, the tree probably would have held together and produced lots of good fruit before it ever split (if it ever did split).
It’s not talked about anywhere, but some varieties of peaches are more prone to split than others (e.i. Encore) It’s sort of like some varieties of peach are prone to grow straight up (i.e. many of the NC varieties like Contender) and some naturally grow more spreading (i.e. Redhaven). Some are prone to have lots of blind wood as the tree gets older (i.e. Earlystar) and some continue to send out renewal wood (i.e. Harken).
A peach tree’s growth pattern, or whether or not it’s prone to splitting is not a big deal from a cultivar selection standpoint. In other words, generally I wouldn’t get rid of a cultivar just because it was prone to split or had a poor growth habit, but it can be useful information to know, as a nuance thing, whether or not you can get away with some minor pruning/training mistakes and still have a long term productive tree.
From a pruning perspective, it’s not a big deal that you cut the scaffold off, but the tree looked like it was just about ready to start fruiting. As was mentioned earlier, peach trees are fairly forgiving, if they are vigorous like yours. They give lots of opportunities to shape.
One possible positive of cutting the scaffold off, is that it looks like it was sort of heading into the street (hard to tell from the pics). It looks like your peach tree is fairly close to the street, so I wouldn’t let much grow in that direction anyway. Spreading mature peach trees have a 20’ spread (10’ radius) which would definitely put your peach into the street. You can keep them cut back, but it’s hard to keep them cut back and productive at the same time. It’s much easier if you don’t have any scaffolds growing toward the street.
In fact, if you kept the tree pruned right at the edge of the street, I could envision cars stopping momentarily and picking a red peach or two from their window and driving off (thinking the owner won’t miss one or two). If a lot of people did this, you wouldn’t have any peaches on that side anyway.
Lastly, you might not wait till the end of the growing season to start making some pruning/training decisions and actions. I do a lot of pruning/shaping decisions in the spring with the first flush of growth, as well as into early summer. Once the harvest season starts, I quit shaping, but that’s only because I don’t have time. Early season wood is easier to train, if you need to tie something down. Plus you can get rid of stuff very early that you know you won’t want. This sends more energy and growth to the stuff you want to keep.
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Palmer,
Did you post any picks of this? I couldn’t find a thread where you posted about this, and was interested to see more about it.
Btw, I re-read some posts you are struggling with getting peach trees to shut down before winter. From another thread:
" I had a few other cultivars which decided to really get growing in late August, and the cold fall weather seems to have hammered them. My reading keeps pointing to the importance of rootstocks which help direct the early dormancy. I watched K1, St Julian, American Plum, Manchurian Apricot, Myrobalan, Lovell, and Halford this fall, and the Manchurian Apricot was by far the first to respond to the season change, followed by the American Plum."
Something I tried this fall was spraying urea on a few rows of trees (to increase hardiness and see if it has any affect on bloom emergence) and within a week pretty much all the leaves fell off the trees. I don’t know if they were truly dormant, or if that caused them to enter dormancy early, but it might be something to experiment with in AK.
Thanks for the reply,
It is a Redhaven peach tree. The reason I did the pruning at the time I did was it was the only time to do it, i.e., I was home for Christmas and will likely not return during pruning season. My orchard is on my parent’s property in New Jersey. I moved out of the State and while my father is happy to pick the fruit he has no interest in learning how to prune fruit trees.
I was on the fence about cutting off that limb and wish you replied earlier. I’m fine with waiting a few more years to make the tree truly productive again especially since my parent’s eat the fruit and not me at this point!
Oh, I see. That’s somewhat like my situation. That is, I have to do chores when I have time, and not always at the optimum time.
Sorry about that. I don’t read a lot of pruning threads anymore (there is more to read on the forum than I have time) but I’m sure it will work out fine as long as the tree survives. Sometimes I have mature scaffolds break down and leave big gap in the tree. Even then the tree will still produce lots of peaches and start to grow back in all directions.
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Hi Mark,
I didn’t post anything else about the approach grafts yet, as I was waiting to see how they pulled through this winter. Most are in my crawl space near a vent, and looking pretty good so far. My daughter took some video footage which I will probably edit down and post later.
Several months ago on this forum I saw someone point out the likelihood of illicit grafting in a picture, as the photo showed a patented variety on an unavailable rootstock. This spring I am thinking of approach grafting with three or four small rootstocks each on some newly purchased trees to get the variety on hardier rootstock. That seems like it should be legal even on patented varieties, as one wouldn’t be making any new trees. Does that sound right to you? I saw this concept mentioned in other posts. Do you think there would be an increased likelihood of canker or other issues from multiple rootstocks growing into each other as the tree ages? I will probably experiment both with removing the original rootstock and also leaving the original root.
I’m intrigued by your trial spraying of urea on some trees causing leaf drop. I hope to hear more about your conclusions as the season progresses. I’ve been pulling leaves in an effort to force dormancy. Some varieties are wanting to start dropping leaves like they’re supposed to, and others I gently pull leaves off, while others I have a real tug-of-war getting any leaves off. I’m not sure how early/late to do this, as I’m wanting to wait and let the tree relax its leaf grip as much as it will.
Hi Palmer,
The law which covers plant patents uses the term “reproducing”. Honestly, I don’t know if approach grafting fits the legal definition of “reproducing” or not.
For my part, the law doesn’t always define my actions because the law doesn’t always define right and wrong for me. I use “do unto others” for that test. In other words, I try to put myself in the other person’s shoes, and judge the action from that perspective. In this case, if I were the patent holder, would I have a problem with someone using my patented variety, which they had bought from a licensed nursery, in an approach graft? The answer would be no, I wouldn’t have a problem with it since they really aren’t creating any new trees. Btw, I’m not trying to infer I’m perfect in following my above philosophy, just that on my better days I try.
I don’t think the approach graft would be more prone to canker. Sometimes tight crotch angles with inverted bark can be a little more prone to canker (and for sure splitting) but I would expect the approach graft would callus completely over once you cut off the unwanted scion portion and the unwanted rootstock. All that would be left would be a union, which should eventually callus completely over, leaving no crotch at all.
Saying all this, I have a question. If you are concerned about the hardiness of the rootstock, is there a possibility you can simply bury the rootstock deep enough so that the graft union is well below the soil line, without drowning the roots? That should give some winter protection of the rootstock.
But maybe you are trying to experiment with rootstocks which will force the tree into dormancy earlier?
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Think of it as purchasing a license to possess one instance of the tree. You can do anything you want as long as you have a single instance of the variety (rather, as long as the number matches the number of licenses you own). It’s debatable in that it hasn’t been tested, but you should also be able to create a backup (Sony vs Betamax) as long as you DO NOT USE the backup in anyway. Ie you should* be able to have a patented backup that you do NOT harvest scion or fruit from. Current US law says you can always keep a backup, even of patented technology, as long as it’s not used in any way.
Swapping the roots is absolutely fine. The tree combination is not protected in any way. You would also have to be able to split a patented root from a patented top. Each individual combination carries each license with stays with the genetics.
*never tested for plants in the US, but exactly fits established precedent
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Yes, that is what I am mainly looking at. I was imprecise with my wording. I did talk to another fruit grower with cold weather experience who thought Manchurian Apricot roots would be more vigorous/productive here, as standard peach root wouldn’t like the cold soil temperatures in summer. I’m not sure how true that is yet, as Lovell seems to have put on decent growth last year in a cool summer.
In recent years I suspect lack of summer heat and short growing season may be a bigger issue than winter temperatures. So far this winter I haven’t seen temperatures down to 0 F yet, though we almost surely will.
Speaking of rootstock hardiness, it was also suggested to me that Lovell & etc. would die when the soil freezes to a couple feet deep. We haven’t had much for extreme low temperatures in recent years, but we do have long stretches below freezing, often with very little snow, which can freeze the ground pretty deeply. Would you expect that to be lethal to standard peach roots?
That frozen ground I’m asking about has good drainage, BTW.
Hmm, that’s hard to say, but I doubt it. Peaches have pretty shallow roots, but I’m not sure they die easy. Even where I’m at, the ground can freeze to a couple feet in a cold winter (although the ground wouldn’t get as cold as AK). The problem with testing this theory is that I suspect peaches frozen at ground level probably behave the same as peaches cut at ground level.
I’ve cut down lots of peach trees at ground level (during the dormant season) and most of the time they don’t send up anything new (although sometimes they do). In other words, they act somewhat like a red cedar tree. You cut them at ground level and they are dead. I think it would be the same with peaches frozen at ground level. The advantage of planting deep to me is that if you felt the rootstock was the most winter tender part of the tree, burying it deep might protect that part of the tree.
Although I feel like I know peach trees almost as well as my wife, I’ve not had to zone push them too much, so I can only speak from reading and extrapolation.
In previous forums, there were lots of folks trying to grow peach trees in zone 4. @warmwxrules has been doing it for years but I think he has pretty much settled on potted peaches for guaranteed survival.
Here is a somewhat familiar post via the old guard from Dave Griffin. It has been re-posted on the internet several times by folks (including warmwx and myself) because it speaks truth. A few years ago I interacted with Dave on a forum and he had apparently given up on trying to grow peaches unprotected. At that point, he had apparently moved to a strategy of trying to grow peaches protected, so he was looking for an old peach called “Compact Redhaven”, so he could cover the trees more easily during winter.
At the time I didn’t know where to find Compact Redhaven (although I’d heard of it) but later read that many times an isolated self-pollinated flower of a Redhaven will produce a Compact Redhaven.
Anyway, here is his advice from zone 4. I think I agree with all of it except perhaps some of the rootstocks suggested. Some of the hardy rootstocks he mentions have known graft incompatibility with peaches. If faced with very short lived peach trees due to graft incompatibility vs. peaches freezing to death, I think I would choose, rather, winter protection, which was apparently the direction Dave was going.
As an aside, I think if I were to try to provide winter protection to peach trees, I would probably approach it the same as one old zone 4 grower who built more or less “concrete forms” out of plywood. They were designed for quick assembly. He stored them in the summer and would put them up in the fall, and heat the inside with a light bulb. Even in very cold sub-zero temps, he claimed he could keep the inside temps reasonable for peaches (i.e. close to zero). He speculated they could be heated even with a candle.
"Welcome to the asylum.
I’ve been finishing up the hurry-up, freeze-up! work and haven’t been able
to get to this until now.
I have been experimenting with growing peaches and other tender fruit
trees in zone 4a, central MN, pretty intensely since 2000 and less so before
that. I am a collector, tester, grower and breeder and have an experimental,
mostly one of a kind, collection of over 350 trees. Many of these are hardy
here (I think I may now have the largest collection of hardy plums in the
US) but some are tender and would not survive without some modification to
standard “plant and wait” horticultural practices. I have apricots, sweet
cherries and European plums that fit this description but the largest number
of these tender trees and the most tender of them are the peaches. Still, I
have been able to test around 85 named cultivars and have around 55
survivors currently, both named and private selections. They are growing as
branches on 45 hardy peach seedlings that are offspring of the Bear Creek
Siberian C based material, which are also the basis for my testing and
breeding. (Some of you have contributed material for testing or have
provided information that has helped me to track down promising material and
I am grateful.) I know that growing the test branches is not a true measure
of absolute hardiness but it gives me an indication of relative hardiness.
If a cultivar survives as a branch then I make up trees to plant out for a
second test, if not, I am through with it.
Meanwhile, the branches provide me with breeding material which I use to
make crosses on the better selections of the seedlings. Breeding trees have
been selected based on fruit size and quality and on early ripening, which
is important for hardiness as early ripe trees have more time to harden off.
These are the seed parents for crosses made using pollen from the good
quality named cultivars with a known track record for hardiness and/or those
having a long chill hour requirement, which is linked to hardiness. For
pollen parents, I have chosen from the older cultivars of commercial and
backyard/farmers market types rather than from newer commercial ones. This
is because hardiness and other desirable characteristics seem to have become
secondary considerations in contemporary breeding programs to firm flesh and
other commercial qualities. My goal is to produce a peach that I can grow
and eat in MN rather than one that looks good on the shelf in a grocery
store half way across the country. I also use pollen from the private
seedling selections I have collected and, of course, I am making reciprocal
crosses on the good quality branches when their flower buds survive the
winter. The first planting from the crosses of selected seedlings x Harrow
Diamond made in 2004 were grown out this year. They made around 3’ of growth
and should provide a small amount of first fruit for evaluation in two more
years.
Here are some things I have learned, many the hard way, about growing
peaches in a cold climate:
- Hardiness is much more complex than minimum winter temps. Especially
so are the conditions in the fall when trees are going dormant, which is
almost never given the attention it deserves and may be at least as
important as winter minimums. Many trees thought to have been killed during
a late Jan/early Feb deep cold spell may have already been dead from a
sudden change to cold in Dec/ Nov, even though the temps were less severe.
Of course when they don’t leaf out in Spring the mid winter cold is blamed.
Last years minimum was only -23 F with good snow in late Jan, which should
have been easy for my trees, but we had sudden unusually cold temps for a
long period in December before there was snow cover and so there was a lot
of damage and mortality in the peaches. - The weak link in peach tree hardiness is the trunk. A tree goes
dormant from the top down and the last thing to harden off is the trunk. An
early cold snap that comes in before the trunk hardens off can kill the tree
trunk without damaging any other part of it. I have learned to delay
celebrating tree survival in spring beyond an examination finding green twig
cambium right out to the tip of every branch and plenty of live buds. Too
many times I have seen those buds break into lush growth only to then stop
growing abruptly and then dry up. This is because, as it has turned out too
many times, the trunk was dead just above the soil line. I am experimenting
with budding and grafting 2’-3’ high on the rootstock in hopes of providing
a hardy trunk. - Bailey rootstock is not the answer to hardiness problems. It may well
be a vigorous rootstock that is itself hardier than most peaches, but it
grows too long into the fall and induces the scions grafted on it to do so
as well, delaying senescence. The common peach seedling rootstocks Lovell,
Halford and Nemaguard also have this effect, as does Pumiselect and the
plums St. Julian ‘A’ and Mariana 2624. Siberian C based peaches defoliate
early and induce the scion grafted on them to do so when used as a
rootstock, or at least it doesn’t get in the way. Some other plum
rootstocks including P.americana and, less so, P. bessei so the same. I am
experimenting with various cherry plums as rootstocks for peach with this in
mind. Scion overgrowth? Sure, but the tree will probably be dead from other
causes before this becomes a serious problem and staking is easy. Suckering?
Its easy to cut off the suckers. An additional benefit of using plums is
that you can then grow peaches in heavier soil than you otherwise could. - Warm wet weather in fall trumps rootstock in the battle to get the tree
to shut down. Tarping off the roots seems to help but sweating and the
continual presence of the tarp does not permit drying out of the soil
between rains. I wish I knew how to do this without having to roll the tarp
up in good weather. Anybody? - Southwest injury is a big problem. For those who are blissfully
ignorant of SW injury, here is the story: its a cold day in January with
high pressure in control. There is only a light breeze and a few white puffy
clouds in the the clear blue sky. At 2:00 PM the high temp for the day of
minus 15 F is approaching but while the low sun angle doesn’t provide much
heat to the earth (thats why its winter) it feels warm on your face despite
the cold. It is also warm on the vertical tree trunks and their temperature
has risen to way above 0 F. Then the sun dips behind one of those clouds for
just a few minutes but that is long enough to make you feel cold and to
bring the trunk temp suddenly goes back to -15 F. Sun, shade, hot, cold…
repeat until cambium is completely dead on the southwest side of the tree.
Even if the tree isn’t killed outright the tree is doomed because there is
now an entry point for insects, bacterial canker, you name it. Pertinent
contributing factors: when the weather is the coldest the sun angle is near
its lowest, and, the farther North you are the lower the winter sun angle
and the bigger the danger of SW injury. By all means paint the trunks white
as high as you can reach and put on white tree wrap/guards (why do they even
make brown tree wrap?). - Don’t plant a tender tree in a “protected” site. I wish I knew how many
times someone has told me about the peach that died in spite of their having
planted it in this great warm and wind protected site right up along the
south side of the house. Absolute cold kills peaches not wind chill unless
you are in a prairie climate with dry snowless winters, and then that is bud
desiccation, not wind chill. And minimum temperatures come around sunrise,
way after any benefit from yesterday afternoons buildup of slightly warmer
temperatures in the tree’s little heat island is long gone. Once in a while
I even hear about someone who has tried to espalier a peach against the
south wall of a building in an effort to get it through the winter - Geez! - Plant your peach on the north side of a shade source - building, row of
evergreens, etc. It should be located far enough away so that it gets full
sun in the summer but close enough so it is in the shade through the coldest
winter months and up to bloomtime. Tender trees can survive severe cold,
often colder than they are rated for, if they remain in deep dormancy. I
found that many zone 5 trees were hardy in my zone 4a temperatures when they
survived -29 F during the winter of '03-'04. Often the zone 5 rating
reflects a trees inability to resist de-hardening in a warm spell and/or to
recover from it and re-harden when the weather turns cold again… rather
than its susceptibility to cold midwinter temperatures. Winter shade helps
keep the tree dormant during winter warm spells, delays its breaking
dormancy in the spring, and delays bloom. In addition, no winter sun on the
trunk = no SW injury. - Peaches and apricots are a good risk in cold climates. They are very
vigorous and so recover quickly from winter injury. Since they bear fruit on
one year old wood they are always just one good winter away from a crop. So
for an established peach that has died back to the snowline in winter, it
would not be unreasonable to see 6’ of new growth during the next summer
which would then bear fruit the following summer after a mild winter.
Madison and Hardired are good choices in spite of tender flower buds because
they are very wood hardy and the tree is more likely to survive a cold
winter in good condition even though the flower buds may die, then they can
produce a full crop the next year if a mild winter follows. By contrast, my
sweet cherries need two mild winters to get fruit - one to form spurs and
another to get fruit. Every cold climate gets occasional mild winters but 2
in a row is rare. - Don’t plant a peach tree thinking that at some time in the distant
future, grandchildren at your side, you will be able to look back and fondly
recall this day. Plant peaches like you do tomatoes expecting their demise
and planning for their replacement. Even in ideal climates and conditions
peaches are not an icon for longevity and for sure they are not going to be
when you plant them on the fringes of their range and beyond. Better to
take heart in the fact that they are vigorous and precocious (I’ve had a
partial crop on peaches in their second growing season from the graft ) and
you might get lucky for a while with a few unpredictable crops before the
tree dies… and that they are so very good that when you do get them it is
worth the risk and work. - Reliance is not the hardiest cultivar, and it doesn’t have to be. There
is a group of relatively hardy varieties, named and unnamed, that includes
Reliance but also Veteran, McKay (at least as hardy for me as Reliance in
flower and wood) and Madison and Hardired Nectarine (might be a little more
wood hardy). Within this group, planting site and horticultural methods are
much more important than which cultivar you choose to grow. The “Haven”
peaches from MI have done well for me as have the “Prairie” series from IL
and the Harrow varieties. ‘Sunapee’, the other peach besides Reliance out of
NH, has done well as have WI Balmer, Champion, and Polly. But again, let me
emphasize, its not which cultivar you choose within this group but how you
grow it. Somewhere warmer than here the choice of cultivar may be enough to
make the difference but in my location this alone is not enough as my pile
of dead trees will attest. From what I have learned by listening to the
problems people have growing peaches in zone 5 and even warmer, any place
that has serious winter to the extent that they hope to have a white
Christmas - whether they get one or not - could benefit from some or all of
these growing principles. - For those of you planting seeds and making your own grafts, no one
year old peach tree is hardy regardless of cultivar. You could get lucky
with heavy snow cover or a mild winter but to ensure survival for the first
winter you have to dig it up a tree and heal it in at an angle with mulch
over the top, or protect it some other way. Any hardiness a peach may
eventually have comes about with age and is not present the first year. I
don’t mind killing trees if I learn something from it but nothing is learned
from losing a one year old tree.
Good Luck and remember that grow is a verb.
Dave"
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Thanks for posting. I’ve seen this a few times and always re-read it as there is so much good information. I never heard the follow-up that Dave eventually went to a winter tree protection model.
Regarding delayed incompatibility, I assume you’ve seen some of the research from Canada where they originally found pears incompatible with cotoneaster rootstock, but learned that by leaving some suckering on the cotoneaster the plants achieved long-term viability. I wonder if that approach would address incompatibility in other fruits. (I’ve always just whacked off every sucker I saw.)
I’ve been thinking the container plantings and moving to shelter would really be the sure thing solution for up here. I’m not set up for that at this point. But my father-in-law lives not too far away, and I think we might get some experiments going for him in that direction.
At any rate, I have enough standard peach rootstock in the ground now that I’ll start getting some idea if they survive winters here. The two trees in my unheated greenhouse haven’t had any issues yet in their two winters. I don’t feel like the greenhouse is giving them much benefit groundwise, as I leave the windows and door open until March to keep things from heating up and starting early budding.
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And you have an advantage in that you’re in zone 5? A lot of people trying the sheltered technique have to do so because they are in zone 4. You may well find your peach trees do just fine unsheltered in your climate. I hope so.
As expected no growth below where I made the cut. Does anyone recommend some kinda of graft? I know peaches are really tough to graft. My other option is waiting until next year to top work it, which would be unfortunate.
I have scions still in the fridge. I suppose I could get creative with them.