Gold Dust - A very good early peach, and no problem with softening on the tops like in some years. I opened up the tree to give more light to the center and it is now recovered from borers.
Clayton - Very good as usual. Very big load, probably should have thinned more. Only downside of these is they are pretty soft when ripe. But boy are they juicy!
John Rivers white nectarine - Squirrels took care of nearly all of these but I had a few and they were excellent. No rot. This guy is a keeper! It was once the most popular nectarine in California, a very old variety. Very few nectarines have been rot resistant so I am really impressed with this guy.
Zin Dai Jiu Bao - Excellent small crop off this guy. Its proving to be my best early white peach, I think it clearly surpasses Carman. None of that green color or flavor, they are white/yellow with a slight red blush when ripe. Pick and let sit a few days on the counter to soften, otherwise its too hard. Cling.
TangOs - Letting these hang really late, they are a very good peach that way. They stop becoming so chewy and become more juicy. Getting some rot on them, they are in the susceptible category. In the long run this variety is probably not worth keeping for me. Of the latest ones 2/3 rotted.
Nectar - Similar to Carman but smaller fruits; seems less greenishness in the flavor but more samples needed. Fruits are much smaller than Carman. It is very similar to John Rivers which is a parent.
Mericrest nectarine - a bit bigger than past years. I think the spotting is what is getting them so small; with a regular spray program this would probably come out full sized.
Ernies Choice - Excellent this year, huge peaches with great flavor. Looks like this tree just took awhile to get happy but its a real winner now. Incredibly productive.
Foster - Tree is not doing well and didn't get any good fruit. Stinkbug magnet as well. This has been excellent in the past but its a picky variety and the root had bad borers.
Red Baron - Only got one fully ripe peach off this one but it was truly excellent. WOW. Gotta give this guy a good spot!
St. John - rotting problems as usual but I am getting a few tastes unlike some years. Which makes me remember why I have yet to rip it out -- its very good. Still, its only worth keeping as a taste reference, its far too susceptible to everything including stinkbugs.
Sanguine Tardeva - Rotting a fair amount. Taste is really excellent. On new rootstock with more thinning they are sizing up much better, still not full sized but decent size. This is one awesome peach, very similar to and every bit as good as Indian Free.
Athena - An excellent honey peach, lots of great fruits on it. This guy is now a very strong winner on all fronts, the skin and flesh have very good texture and the honeyed taste is truly excellent. Getting rot but its a bad rot year.
Shui Mi Tao aka Honey - I think I need to wait a year or two on this one, most of the fruits dropped before they were fully ripe. The few that remained were just OK. The other honey peaches (Pallas, Athena) took several years to get going so its worth waiting on this one.
Longevity - Huge rot issues on this honey peach; Maybe its time for this guy to go, it seems to be in the extreme rot category.
Early Crawford - Coming in small but flavorful. Not quite as good as I remember them in past years at this point, they are very soft and very small. I now expect this is a seedling and not the original Early Crawford, the fruits are far too small.
Pallas - Something took most of these, and quite a few dropped as well. Got a few really good ones, it is a honey peach very similar to Athena. Ripe fruits are more green than Athena, and smaller.
Eagle Beak - All rotted yet again sigh; it is a parent of Longevity and is showing.
Carolina Gold - This year these are very good. Maybe the tree just took a bit to get going. They are similar to Ernies Choice in being a classic productive large yellow peach. Its not as sweet or flavorful as OHenry but the fruits look a lot better.
OHenry - Exxxxcelent! With the usual spots on top. Flavor similar to Red Baron but fruits larger.
Oldmixon Free - Exxcellent as usual! What a superb peach. The "Improved" version seems to be a bit earlier, like a week or so; maybe it is in fact a different variety.
Lady Nancy - Too much rot. It is very similar to Oldmixon in taste (nearly identical) but has been a lot more rot prone.
Indian Cling - The usual huge harvest of unblemished cooking peaches. The best low-input peach variety. They are not very sweet though and hard like rocks so cooking only.
Late Crawford - Very sour and flavorful. Ripens over a long period. Had a lot drop but still got a good harvest. I am now liking this guy more than Early Crawford; it took more years to get into good production but is now superior.
Indian Free - Excellent as usual. Rot not too bad.
Heath Cling - Hard cooking peach with a different flavor than other peaches. I like it for its lateness and unusual flavor. Not much for fresh eating though, too hard.
Salwey - not ripe yet.

My T-budding on peach trees does not look promising this year, unfortunately. I'll try grafting next spring.

I don't see Sanguine Pilat mentioned. From your past reports, I thought it was like Sanguine Tardeva, without the rot. How did it fare in this high-rot year?

Mamuang- I've been an abysmal failure at chip and T budding, but have had decent success with spring grafting. So, don't worry, there is hope.

Tony

Muang, I have never done very well with T-budding peaches. They say its easier than grafting but I always had better luck spring grafting. If you spring graft in a good temperature window I feel the odds are very good.

Chris, send me an email in winter if you need John Rivers. Ditto for any other regular posters wanting to try anything else here.

Scott

I think he is right to call the varieties he does susceptible, but the actual difficulty of bringing more susceptible varieties to harvest next to all the other issues doesn't seem very important to me. My susceptible and non s, varieties get the same program anyway.

Just a difference of opinion, perhaps, or a difference in conditions of sites (I do a lot of summer pruning and the fruit gets direct eastern exposure at most sites I manage). He has more heat and humidity, which is bound to make a difference.

Also, I think stinkbug damage can have a lot to do with where peach trees (nectarines, pears or russet apples) lie in an orchard. If they are closer to hosts of these pests the damage is consistently much greater for me. Not to say that in Scott's orchard this is at all a factor as he probably doesn't have stands of native broadleaf weeds as often occur in orchards I manage including my own.

Stinkbug damage is an ever increasing issue in my own orchard and a few others I manage. I noticed at one site where they were devastating to pears and peaches that the Saturn peach was least affected. At this site I believe the culprits were brown marmerated stink bugs.

Peaches weren't too badly hit in my own orchard (never have been) but Asian pears were hardly worth the effort of growing and half of my Euro pears were destroyed by late stink bug predation. Half my nectarine trees were also badly damaged, but early in the season. It just keeps getting worse and I don't think on my property it was BMSB. Based on what I observed it was the old standbys, green stinkbugs and the dark one that attacks squash.

It is a shame to be in a position of needing to mow all my wild areas- they feed my pollinators all season long and I don't want to reduce that population but these stinkbugs are becoming game changers here. Multiple aps of a pyrethroid is not an attractive option for me.

On the bright side, they have so far shown no interest in any variety of plum I grow anywhere.

My guess of why I have more rot problems is there is more rot-inducing weather here, but it could be something else.

Scott

I also experienced a lot more rot than usual this year, but only on my apples, everything else was rot free. Go figure.

I seem to need to prune peaches almost every couple of weeks to keep the fruit well lit, while at the same time, leaving enough leaves for full sugar.

Hman, I try to open up my peach trees but I prune no more than 1-2 times in the summer and so my trees are not as open as yours I would expect. Lady Nancy is in a bad spot shaded by a plum and that is probably a factor in the rot it is getting. In general I have a lot of stuff too crammed in, it comes with growing 50 peach varieties in 100' of row.

Scott

DR, attractiveness to BMSB, early bearing, flavor, freestone, prefer yellow flesh (priority qualities...more or less in that order)

I simply cannot produce good peaches, let alone market quality here.
I guess I need the Liberty apple equivalent peach for our zone.
Any ideas?

What problems are you having on peaches? Disease wise what helped me the most was dormant copper at leaf fall and at spring bud swell -- bacterial spot was pretty much eliminated on most varieties with that. For brown rot I do one spray of propiconazole (Monterey Fungi Fighter) in midsummer, as well as sulphur with most spring bug sprays (4 or so times).

Scott

You name it, but mainly bacterial spot, and BMSB which never ever appear here early and can never be seen on the peaches until they begin to ripen, then they descend in masse on them. Of course everwhere they "sting" them brown rot sets in. I got a few nice peaches, but nothing to write home about.
Also my peaches begin to defoliate early every stinking year.
I tried a PF "Fat Lady" based on supposed DR, but after speaking with Paul Friday himself I got the feeling that he didn't share the enthusiasm for it's DR like had been reported. I now know why...it's because it is not DR at all.

I'll check in to Winblo and Clayton and probably order one or the other.

Scott

What's the best peaches/nectarines based solely on eating experience.

For yellow peaches/nects I would say Mericrest/OHenry/Red Baron/Foster/St. John are all fantastic, it would be hard to rank them. If you want earlier season yellows throw in Clayton and Winblo. Really early? Throw in Gold Dust. For white peaches/nects, Oldmixon Free/Lady Nancy is my favorite followed by Zin Dai Jiu Bao, and John Rivers is right up there as well. For red flesh, Indian Free, Sanguine Tardeva, and Sanguine Pilat are pretty much equal.

This is also based on my memory where recent seasons stick more than further back ones. OHenry was particularly impressive to me this year, I don't know if it was a particularly good year for it or what.

BTW I notice I left Carman off my original post. It really impressed me several years ago but has not been consistent, it can have a bit of odd/tinny taste which detracts. Very minor but it knocks it out of the top group. Nectar I have not fruited enough (its on the squirrel path) but it could join the very top whites.

Scott

I grew Nectar outdoors in Amarillo. It was great one yr but after that I can't remember so it either froze out or was forgettable. I might try it again.

I was reminded of these two because Arboreum Nursery's listings are out and both of these are on it. They also have Late Crawford.

Scott

Awesome peach report as usual. Here's hoping that you'll update the rest of your blurb later this year: http://scottfrasersmith.com/blurb/

Your info is very helpful for us lurkers. This is only my 2nd post, but I read everyone else's posts religiously. ;)

This year I finally started planting my dream orchard in the Catoctin Mountains (Zone 6b). Among other things, I planted the following peaches:

Gold Dust
O'Henry
Baby Crawford
Indian Free
White Lady (foreground of attached pic)

I have HIGH hopes for these!

The soil is clay hard-pan, so I had to elevate the plantings and amend the soil. Used Citation & Lovell rootstocks. Citation did okay, but the trees on Lovell transplanted best & look terrific. No fruits yet.

At the local farmers markets, I sampled 4 peaches this year that really blew me away:

First week of July, I ate some Springcrest yellow semi-freestones. They impressed me for such an early-season peach: soft with great flavor and no leathery bitterness in the skin. Apparently this hardy old variety is ubiquitous among commercial growers, but I cannot seem to find it being sold bare-root anywhere. Anyone know of Springcrest trees or budwood sources?

Most other early peaches around here were diluted & disappointing this year- perhaps too much rain fell early in the season.

... but the late peaches were amazing!

Loring and Canadian Harmony blew me away as this year's champions.
Blushingstar white was good too. All 3 were melting and luscious.

The Lorings this year had beautiful apricot-colored flesh. They had a super tangy/ juicy tangelo-like flavor that produced a real WOW factor.

The C. Harmony peaches had a nicely balanced true peachy flavor.

Blushingstar was really the only good white around here this year. Sweet and nicely textured (despite occasional rot spots).

Now I am determined to eventually grow all of these varieties.

I put at least 40 plants into the ground this inaugural year, and budded some bonus varieties as well. Most everything did well. Not bad for Year #1, I think! :)

-Matt

You can order an Early Crawford from Greenmantle.

Mrs. G, I obtained scions for Early Crawford from the CRFG swaps. The source is likely to be from the Prusch Park orchard by San Jose. I expect all Early Crawford in circulation could be this seedling. Either that or there is something wrong with my tree that is causing it to not size up.

Scott

Clark, Immunox is not a great fungicide from brown rot. Use Monterey Fungi Fighter.

Scott

Mrs G, I'm not really sure my EC is a seedling, just that it seems on the small/soft side like seedlings. Its still great eating. Of these very old peaches it is likely that many were seed-propagated at some point, as the older varieties are more likely to come true to seed. They also come from a time when seed propagation of peaches was common.

Scott

Scott, I always assumed that the ability of fruit to come true to seed is mostly about being self fertile. I can see the logic of selective choosing of strains more prone to this trait by growers in the old days, but is this more than a logical leap on your part? If it is, where does the info come from- personal experience or what? I have almost no experience at growing peaches from seed so I'm curious.

Scott

I would think that the peaches would gradually change to improved strains as farmers selected them for improvement- but I guess that's just one way of looking at it. You are talking about the reality, I take it, and you make a good point with heirloom tomatoes although it would be hard to prove that they didn't change over the years unless you had really good illustrated records. Whose to say that what they called a purple brandywine in 1850 was nearly a duplicate of the tomato they call that today.

Thanks for answering my question. Some things to think about.

I think you are thinking about things like alterations made by the nurserymen culling out those with less desirable characteristics or selecting those that exhibited superior traits. No doubt some of that occurred and in some ways it is intergral in this process.
I think you might also be thinking a bit in terms of natural evolution. If you are, don't, because that would take eons.
I think what Scott is getting at is that each tree would have somewhat differing DNA even though the seed "variety" is the same. The difference would be attributed to recessive alleles in some cases not being expressed and in other cases where it is (at a 4-1 ratio). If you review then a Punnett square you can see then that after even a single generation, some of these recessive alleles would simply "breed out" due to the dominant gene commanding it's expression. When that happened there would be less pollen (even in a self-fruitful stand) that contained the recessive gene, thereby offering even less chance for it's expression (especially since the "receiver" likely no longer has the recessive gene either).
There would however be rarer times when those recessive genes (think little t - little t) or ( t t ) would be expressed. That marker could be for some form of disease resistance and that would be culled (as you alluded to) by natural selection or the nurseryman's axe. This couldn't happen overnight (or in a orchard generation) because of the randomized Tt. TT, tT. and tt occurring in many trees. BUT it WOULD be occurring and due to the short lived nature of peach trees it would be occurring at a fairly rapid pace.

One thing I should correct myself on. A dominant gene would likely be something that aides in the plants survival and not necessarily something we want in a peach tree. A dominant gene may trigger more smaller fruit rather than fewer larger fruit for example. I don't know if that's a true example I'm just using it for illustrative purposes.

When thought of in the bigger picture then it is fairly easy to see where variation would be reduced to the point of near total elimation of variation. Kind of like the repeated smelting and refining of precious metals. The more it happens the purer it gets.

I'm certainly no genetics expert although I find the field fascinating. I also have poor communication skills and after rereading this post I don't think I was very clear. Also, I'm remembering just how little I remember about all this.

If you think in human terms inbreeding reduces genetic variation and the risk of a recessive allele like those expressed as polydwarfism. Down's syndrome. albinism etc. In the orchard world these "children" would simply be culled or they would die of natural causes as is often the case. Nevertheless. those that were fortunate enough to not have any recessive (or mostly) genes exhibited would then become vastly more genetically similar to ultimately the point of being identical (though that may be in the real world scientifically impossible).
The "children" then in this scenario who were fortunate would after repeated generations begin to exhibit traits just like their parents Black hair, brown eyes. medium build, fair skin etc.
Extrapolate that to peaches and you get peaches more similar in characteristics to that of their originally selected "parents" with less randomized gene construction and less (or no) recessive gene expression.

Wow...hope my old professor don't find this post cuz I'm sure he could pick this apart something terrible...lol

I'm aware there is a lot more to it than this simplified explanation but I think this is the "meat" of it all.

Always amazes me you can sell inbreds for big bucks by calling them purebreds.

Wow...really? Or are you just being nice...lol?

MrsG someone posted a link a few months ago about some German geneticists/breeders who warned of the dangers of inbreeding the worlds apples so much. It may have even been you who posted it.
I think what they were getting at was kinda similar to this in the sense that some genes (that may in the future prove valuable) could be simply bred away.
Also the unique genetic similiarities in modern apples at specific markers could prove dangerous should a disease develop that targets them or maybe even an insect mutation. Seemed as though everything had red delicious or golden delicious in it's parentage. Brothers and sisters can only breed so long before eventually there is a price to pay.
I think they had other ideas too which I don't remember or simply wasn't smart enough to understand in the first place. Smart those Germans are.

Well...yes...and no. Dogs are different in the fact that they are able to roam about and mate with whomever. There is also the issue that those who displayed traits unlike their parents be culled. Also, many dogs live longer than a peach tree may stay in commercial production if you include those that die by the axe or by the storm.

All those things accounted for though then yes it would work that way (at least I think so). Domesticated dogs became wildly differentiated due to human intervention via radical cross-breeding or hybridization. Now, many breeds are not even sexually compatible just like some fruits. Just like Hyenas or jackals or dingos who do all look generally the same and have similar traits and behaviors. It might take a lot longer though because no dog I'm aware of is capable of self-fertilization. Not a deal killer though, it will just take centuries longer.
I wonder if it's possible triploids became sterile in the same or similar way that a liger did?

The pear and the apple were once the same and were sexually compatible with the Asian pear serving as the proof of an evolutionary bridge. Possibly these are some of the reasons winter banana can serve as an interstem and why quince can graft to pear, but not apple etc etc etc.

They would encourage any trait, dominant or not, that improved the quality of the fruit- therefore pushing against any dominant trait that didn't lead to superior fruit.

I also doubt that peach trees were ever placed in a situation where they weren't exposed to other pollen from various varieties. What commercial grower (or any serious grower at all) of any era would want peaches that all bear in a 2 week window? They'd go broke. The idea of a single variety being protected form cross pollination seems ludicrous to me. Honey bees can travel for miles.

Your explanation doesn't at all explain to me how these things wouldn't lead to ever changing varieties in the context of actual orchard conditions, but then, I never went beyond botany 2 in hort school. I do, however, have at least an average grasp of logic (I guess all people believe they do and don't like to be challenged on this point).

I'm told modern purveyors of heirloom vegetable seeds go to great length to avoid cross pollination from different strains. This would have been necessary in 19th century Kansas to maintain purity of peach varieties as well.

This wouldn't necessarily apply to peaches because peaches aren't really hybridized. Nevertheless the older non-hybridized corn varieties were more stable than newer hybrids, despite that corn is wind pollinated. Don't ask me how old varieties of corn can maintain their unique characteristics when there are fields of other varieties planted right next to them.

There is a new peach developed by WSU and USDA called Trugold. It is supposed to be stable enough to be propagated by seed. Supposedly no need for grafting to propagate this peach.

Scott

I've referred to seed becoming more true as "refinement" because that's really what it is.
Dominant genes express themselves at a 4-1 ratio let's just say 75% of the time. Therefore 25% of the time they do not, in those cases the recessive gene is expressed. On the next go-round though, the recessive genes likelihood of expression becomes even less. And so on and so forth until eventually your Punnett square is Dominant-Dominant or TT. Once it becomes TT for a specific marker it is king and cannot be unseated (at least in the elementary version). The original seedling already had been refined through years of selection Harvestman...just like you pointed out. So...it's mixture of DNA already comprised TT markers for a number of the traits that mattered to the grower. Further planting of this seed ( that creates a self fertile tree ) then can only ultimately become refined. Planting en masse in large stands simply accelerates this refinement due to preventing (to some degree) foreign pollen invasion. Ultimately though it doesn't matter too much because it has so many TT markers it becomes increasingly difficult to influence.
Again, I keep saying this because it needs to be said, THIS is only the very basic Chapter #1 7th grade science class version. I am fully aware there is a ton more to it than this and I'm undoubtedly incorrect in at least a few assertions. This is WHY it works though.

If growers were consistently using seeds from their "best" trees you can't know which traits they might be accentuating from what varieties. It creates an unknowable equation, IMO. Pollen from other and not same varieties would most likely bring the DNA that produced these improvements the growers selected for. Only if they stopped selecting for improvements would this transformation stop.

Peaches don't really have the range of qualities of most other fruit, that is why they are usually sold only as white or yellow peaches instead of by actual name. In other words, differences between cultivars tend to be subtle.

I don't even feel it's necessarily logical to accept the anecdotal observations of extension agents of the 1900's to actually be accurate over a range of years identifying the stability of seedling cultivars. One would have to make extremely careful measurements as it would be impossible to notice subtle changes season to season.

Qualities vary as much from year to year from the affects of weather as DNA from my experience. Qualities of same varieties also vary from soil to soil and site to site a great deal even on the same season.

You can finish up if you want. I don't think I will respond even if I have some disagreement again. You've made some very good points which I recognize and appreciate. Wish you could say the same of mine, but maybe mine aren't as valid. I don't know.

EXACTLY. Boy I wish I could condense things like this. It's just that even if foreign pollen invaded it is difficult to unseat many markers because the females is likely (not always) dominant already, and has produced an attractive quality for the grower (which is why it exists to begin with).

Yes and that is often times the case and not just with peaches either. Come on Harvestman...you know this. I didn't say it couldn't happen either, in fact, I agreed it could and likely does.

If growers were consistently using seeds from their "best" trees you can't know which traits they might be accentuating from what varieties. It creates an unknowable equation, IMO.

No, in fact it creates a mostly knowable equation in our discussion. Entirely known...No...mostly known...yes. This is true however only in the context of the original discussion...you are deviating here.

Pollen from other and not same varieties would most likely bring the DNA that produced these improvements the growers selected for.

This is not necessarily true. A lot of the things they "selected for" will hold the same dominant marker (not all things though). Again, you are assuming that only outside pollinators are successful. I'm lost as to why you keep doing that.

Only if they stopped selecting for improvements would this transformation stop.

Again, in the context of our discussion this is absolutely what has happened and not only that, but improvements could only come from outside pollinators that were successful and had a dominant gene for a preferred trait. Although possible, it is increasingly unlikely for the reasons I've attempted to detail over and over.

Peaches don't really have the range of qualities of most other fruit, that is why they are usually sold only as white or yellow peaches instead of by actual name. In other words, differences between cultivars tend to be subtle.

Of course, because the preferred trait dominant genes were mostly already expressed in the seedlings before they began being clonally propagated. This only reinforces what I'm attempting to get across.

I don't even feel it's necessarily logical to accept the anecdotal observations of extension agents of the 1900's to actually be accurate over a range of years identifying the stability of seedling cultivars.

It's not just anecdotal harvestman. The anecdotal evidence just reinforces the science behind it. To argue the evidence is what is illogical. The "stability" of the cultivars only persists in the closed confines of the original discussion. Moved outside of that they will begin to express on occasion recessive alleles in their progeny. Punnett square harvestman.

One would have to make extremely careful measurements as it would be impossible to notice subtle changes season to season.

Not really, but if it makes you feel better...ok.

Qualities vary as much from year to year from the affects of weather as DNA from my experience. Qualities of same varieties also vary from soil to soil and site to site a great deal even on the same season.

You are now getting WAY off topic and way off track here.

You can finish up if you want. I don't think I will respond even if I have some disagreement again. You've made some very good points which I recognize and appreciate. Wish you could say the same of mine, but maybe mine aren't as valid. I don't know.

You have made good points harvestman, you always do without fail. Also as I've said many times before there is more at play here than we've discussed. That's likely because none of know enough to get beyond this point. At least I know I don't. Hell for that matter I'm struggling here with the kiddie stuff. When I get confused I just keep thinking about the square and big T big T etc

The statement "not really, but if it makes you feel better...ok" kind of says it all for me. This seems to be only about winning something. I believe the fault lies with you there and I expect you believe the fault lies with me.

By my thinking, this is probably the root of any stability that existed and the genetics of it are only a part of the story in that it gave the farmers the opportunity to steer the trees towards stability. The effort was logically all about having several high quality varieties that could be counted on bearing at a specific window so the harvest window was open throughout the season.

It took both the relative natural genetic stability of peaches and careful steering by the farmers, I suspect, and was no accident of nature.

I needed to think it through like a farmer to really have a picture that works for me.

One reason it was hard for me to fathom at first is that seedling peaches are considered more hardy than grafted, and if isolated seedling trees are reliably true, why hasn't this been used more for the development of cold hardy peaches? This question still nags at me a bit.

Seems like if you isolated Reliant for a few generations you could grow them by seed without the expense of cutting off a yearling tree for a bud graft and sell trees with a year less in the ground that are more hardy than a grafted scion tree. Better tree for less money.

"Not. So. Early Crawford is clonally propagated from ancient source. Not clear where this whisper campaign begun. Surely not you! But is propagated on a seedling rootstock. Called Lovell.

Now lets discuss cloning! Mrs. G

I think you could too Harvestman. I don't think anyone would be interested though because the monetary investment required plus the fact that it would take a lifetime to do it.
When ready for sale...who would buy them? They would take longer to grow and come into bearing. How could a potential customer be assured they weren't just some peach pit left over from canning operations. There would also always be that chance that the customer would get the "uh-oh" seed that had the bad genetics

There are however people doing exactly as you say Harvestman...lots of them actually. I wouldn't trust it one bit though. For just $12 you can get 5 seeds of the world's largest peach. Here's a random link:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/KING-OF-PEACHES-WORLDS-LARGEST-PEACH-GIANT-BUDDHA-5-seeds-RARE-TREE-1296-/181281442955?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a35374c8b

On a similar yet different note: Has anyone else seen listings on ebay for Honeycrisp seeds or Pink Lady seeds etc? There are a lot of them...lol
Thing is, they aren't technically misrepresenting what they are either. Still, pretty unethical; that is assuming the seller is aware that they will not produce said tree. They have large colorful photos of trees just loaded with beautiful apples too. Funny stuff.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-tree-9-differernt-varieties-10-50-100-500-1000-seeds-choice-listing-/390705141348?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item5af7d75664

Also, to sell pure seed, most crops have a distance that must be maintained. (such as 1/2 to 1 mile) from other varieties. Even then there is some contamination.

That being said, Just Fruits and Exotics does sell a Roddenberry Heirloom White peach that they say comes true from seed.

Scott

But maybe I should stop submitting my opinions about genetics- I'm only doing it as a therapeutic brain exercise in deductive reasoning anyway. Trying to keep those brain cells regenerating.

I agree with everything you say here. The two questions posed I have no answers for. Good questions.
My gut would say seedlings could be sold as a "variety" legally at least, since the practice has previously been established. Scientifically I would guess it would have to be genetically 100% accurate, but as you pointed out, who's to say a sport limb didn't get scion wood mixed into the fold? I've often wondered about slight genetic diversity among named cultivars even those in clonal propagation.

Me too. I've read there are several strains of Redhaven. Interestingly I've also read seeds from Redhaven will frequently produce a "Compact Redhaven". The Compact Redhaven of years past was a seedling of Redhaven.

Re: Trugold peach

I read in some of the release comments that Trugold is a haploid, which as I understand, would offer a lot more genetic stability vs. a diploid (which is the general chromosomal condition of peaches).

I've been told by someone who knows a lot more about genetics than me that the Trugold peach would need to be kept "a safe pollen distance" from other cultivars to remain true to type, as Hman surmised earlier.

This is unfortunate in my opinion because I suspect few nurseries would go to the necessary effort of segregating this particular peach variety (All photos I've seen of fruit tree nurseries show rows and rows of peaches.) I suspect those getting Trugold peach from seed propagation may not be getting the real deal.

One thing which might make a difference is if a diploid peach can't pollinate a haploid (I forgot to ask about that. Can anyone offer any further insight on this?) If Trugold can't be pollinated by other peaches, then of course there would be no genetic transfer from other peach cultivars, regardless of how close they were planted.

What was the source of your Oldmixon Free? You have one called Oldmixon Free Improved too, yes? Which has performed better for you? Where did you source them? Albemarle Ciderworks/ VintageVaApples? Somewhere else? Thanks,

-Matt

Matt, I have grown out three different Oldmixon Free peaches. One is a tree I got from VVA which they told me came from Peter Hatch and he told me he got it from Southmeadow. I have another called Oldmixon Free Improved which came from CRFG. It is almost identical but ripens a week or so earlier and the fruits seem a touch smaller. My guess is it is a seedling? The third one .. hmm I can't remember where I got it from now but it was a swap with someone. Its just like the VVA one. One reason why I grew out three of them is I have heard mixed information on whether the VVA/Southmeadow one is original.

Scott

What variety is that? It's a notolabel. My nursery has the largest selection of notolabel trees on the planet. That would not be an easy thing to accomplish. The competition is fierce.

Scott

We suppose that some clarification is in order before these suburban legends ripen into received truths. Particularly to correct the order of causation. We received the Early Crawford in the early 1980s, if memory serves, from the former experiment station at Prosser WA, which is no longer. Our principal gnome started the scion exchanges of the CRFG organization in 1983/4, and Early Crawford was one of the original varieties he made available then and in subsequent years. It has disseminated (actually, disscionated) from there and has been propagated by many. Our gnome also was the person who gathered together from our orchard the propagating material for the heritage orchard planted at Emma Prusch Memorial Farm Park of the City of San Jose, which was intended to preserve the fruit varieties of the Santa Clara Valley. This was ca. 1996. A tree of Early Crawford was propagated, but was not planted at Prusch Park, instead ended up in the orchard at Filoli, a property of National Trust for Historic Preservation. This because City of San Jose reduced the space available for trees.

So no Early Crawford could ever have come from Prusch Park. Our gnome has not been involved in the scion exchanges since 1999, and cannot answer for trueness to type of any Early Crawford except those issuing from The Arboreum Company or the USDA National Clonal Germplasm Repository (GRIN), which was propagated from ours. The Arboreum Company certainly does not gather propagating material for our use from the Prusch Park orchard and Crawford material at any scion exchange does not come from Prusch Park. We do know that scions at the various exchanges are handled very promiscuously and come from various sources, are spread out on tables and grabbed up again to be rebagged and sent on to other exchanges. Obviously we do not rely upon such sources.

We received some 20 years ago material purporting to be Oldmixon Free and it was planted (on probation) at Prusch Park. Upon fruiting, we considered it more likely the 'Oldmixon Free Improved' found in Stark Bro's catalogs of the 1920s, for the reasons stated by Scott Smith. And so it was labelled in the Prusch orchard. From there it has travelled the route of scion exchanges and may have shed its qualifier "improved" from time to time. Our friend Charlotte Shelton has many times promised us a tree of Tom Burford's Oldmixon for comparison, but it hasn't happened yet.

The gnomes at The Arboreum Company

Scott

PS I looked up the old Oldmixon Free Improved description, see e.g. this link. It looks like it is supposed to similar to but larger than the original. Thats the opposite of what I am seeing, my "Improved" is smaller than my non-Improved.

I never said or intended to imply that Arboreum is dishonest, and I agree they are an excellent company. Todd is the foremost authority on old peach varieties in the US. But, I still believe that strain of Early Crawford to have been seed propagated at some point, to a version with smaller size.

I would also appreciate that you ask Todd to make an account and reply directly here rather than continuing a proxy debate.

Scott

Scott