I had been wary of Stark but saw they carried Spring Snow and Risingstar so decided to try an order. No rootstock info available, so will try to cancel order. Luckily, ACN still has Spring Snow and September Snow in stock.
So, are you thinking you have a mislabeled peach that turns out to be amazing or that ACN is selling a mediocre white peach that ripens exactly in SS’s season but is something else?
Given your description, if you send me some wood I will graft it to a healthy tree. By the 2nd year it should be loaded with fruit and you will get your comparison without having to graft a peach that may not be very good.
Keep in mind that some peaches that don’t set well there set fine here. Coral Star, Messina and PF28 for example, if my memory serves. I usually have to even thin Flavor May- just not as much.
Rootstock information really isn’t going to matter with peaches. There are no dwarfing rootstocks other than maybe… Controller 6, and that is hardly in circulation because it’s dwarfing ability is still under review and further trial. Everything peach wise at Starks is 99% of the time lovell or halford. They never use K1, K86.
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Down in TX, a few nurseries use Nemaguard for peaches. I have clay soil, so always prefer Lovell or Halford. Citation has been terrible, runting out peaches even in 1st year.
Nemaguard is said to be slightly less cold hardy (don’t know how true that is), which is why I try to avoid it if possible. We don’t have nematode issues this far north, so it’s never a concern for me.
Nemaguard is harder to find in online nursery trade. It’s more region specific (the south), so it’s usually seen at more local nurseries in that area. The only reason there is a lot of it this year at like Vaughn and Cummins is because two or three years ago there was a lovell crop failure so there were fewer 1 year seedlings available last year. Nemaguard was the only thing available so that is what they used to bud the 2022 saplings.
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I have several Peaches and Nectarines from Stark’s, and they all are on Stark’s red leaf Peach rootstock. They sucker slightly around the crown with pretty red leaves. Some plums are also on this rootstock. It’s been rock solid for me, growing better than Lovell but not as good as Nemaguard. Here, Nemaguard is now my preferred rootstock for Peach and Nectarine.
Ah yes, I forgot about that. If I remember correctly, that is a red leafed lovell though (same as a regular lovell as far as I was concerned). I actually have a red leaf lovell from a peach breeder that I am letting grow out to see what it’s like.
The idea with the red leaf version was to make it easier to prune and identify budding/grafting success (at least that is what I was told).
Sent a PM.
I called TyTy a couple years ago and they said all of their peaches were on Nemaguard. I had a bad experience but ended up with some excellent trees when the issue was resolved.
You might want to google Ty Ty reviews before purchasing trees from them.
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Yes, I would not recommend them at all but if someone were looking for a specific variety on nemaguard rootstock and had nowhere else to go then they might be worth the risk.
Generally Guardian is the now preferred rootstock for areas subject to nematodes. But if Nemaguard works in your area… 
Starks Red Leaf came from a seedling found in TN. I’ve grew one out a long time ago. Fruit is small, not sweet and ripens after Redhaven.
Ah, my red leaf is different then. It’s a seedling from a seedling of lovell that went red leaf.
I also use a some Guardian. I’ve found it to produce a smaller less vigorous tree than Nemaguard. They’re both good on disease resistance more so than Lovell at my location.
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Same here. Guardian is the preferred rootstock for NC too. It really helps with Peach Tree Short Life. Nemaguard is not recommended. Guardian produces large trees and big crops here with just a little fertilizer. The trees were so vigorous we had to cut way back on the fertilizer to help control the growth
I agree completely about TyTy. I bought trees from them when I first started. They hardly had any roots and every tree died. I sent pictures showing the dead trees and they replaced them the following year. They all died too!
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with warming summers our late summer/ early fall is becoming hotter and drier. i have a reliance peach i ordered for spring. maybe with a little luck and help from mother nature ill get to taste my 1st tree ripened peach yet!
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Thank you, this just answered a nagging question I had regarding Cummins peach offerings. They are advertising “cold hardy peaches” on nemaguard. This seems like an oxymoron if nemaguard is truly less cold hardy than most. It seems interesting to me that Cummins may risk a hit to their reputation if nemaguard is in fact not cold hardy even if other rootstocks had a crop failure. Maybe they have info we don’t? I got some cheap nemaguard seed last year and am trialing them in my zone 5 just for kicks. Anyone have any data anecdotal or otherwise regarding trees on nemaguard dieing specifically due to the cold hardiness of the rootstock?
A few died for me on Nemaguard. Not sure if that qualifies. That said, I’m slightly suspicious that Nemaguard might be somewhat sensitive to juglone, since they were planted near black walnut, which would be the other explanation. Then again, it could be a combination of the two.
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I’m confident in my grafting abilities. I’ve had very poor take on peach grafts, but was under the impression that what is/was lacking is proper callus temps. I’m wondering if you’d elaborate on what exactly the challenges are, and what optimizations apart from temp. ensure a good take. If one uses parafilm and makes clean well executed cuts with good contact, what else is there besides temp.?
I know that commercially, peaches are typically chip budded. I wouldn’t use a crude graft like a cleft on a peach, but what’s wrong with a veneer graft or even a whip and tongue provided the cuts match well?
Peaches are not so hard to graft if you get the timing right. Now that I figured out that they don’t store well when tightly wrapped in plastic I seem to be able to get about a 75% take rate with a simple splice graft- the simplest of grafts. The main thing is to get a precise match of diameter. Also, for the mother tree to be a vigorously growing one.
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