RE: Propagating stone fruit

The 'needle in a haystack' remark was to indicate that the peaches hybridise
very easily and the fruit of the children may not be as nice as the fruit of
the parents... 
You might also have a go at taking hardwood cuttings... Take pencil-thick
sections of vigorously growing branchlets - about a foot long. Remove all of
the leaves, and the soft growth at the top. Put them in pots of maist sand
until you get to your new house. Then dig a narrow trench about 8" deep. Put
in 2" of sand, then line up the cuttings (make sure you put them in the
right way up), about a foot apart. Firm them in with a friendly boot. Keep
your fingers crossed. Check them in the spring. Leave them in the ground
until next autumn, by which time, if you are lucky, they will have grown
some leaf and a healthy root system. They will then be larger and stronger
than the equivalent seedling, and will be guaranteed to have exactly the
same fruit, which the seedlings won't. If none of them grow, you have been
unlucky, or my method (which I haven't used on peaches) doesn't work. But
you will have the seedlings anyway and you can hope that you will get some
nice, if not identical, peaches from them...

This isn't the 'professional' way to propagate peaches, but it's worth a
try. The professional way is with root-stock and 'chip-budding' - very
fiddly and mainly for specialist growers.

Mike.
 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-propagation@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On
Behalf Of Pat
Sent: 10 September 2005 15:41
To: propagation@mallorn.com
Subject: RE: Propagating stone fruit

Thanks so much Mike!

We are moving and losing our source of a particular type of peach, (Glow 
Haven), that we have been looking forward to having delivered to the door 
every summer.  Our new home is going to have a greenhouse attached, so we 
will be experimenting with the stones we collected this last year and I will

let the list know if we have success.  DH will probably use his dremel for 
the "small" work you have suggested.

Now off I go to dig up plants we have been propogating like rabbits around 
our present home ;-)

Pat and all the boys.
Diabetic Cats Dietary Management - Ower 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiabeticCatsDM/
Moderator:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FIP_Support/
http://patcreighton.blogspot.com/

----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mike Open" <michael.open@ntlworld.com>
> It's a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, but if you want to do
> it, use a small hacksaw to saw a SMALL amount off the pointed end of the
> stone(s). Then plant the stone on its side in a large pot and leave it
> outside over-winter. The seedling should be easily visible by mid-April.
>
> Best of luck - and remember to spray to keep off the leaf-curl fungus just
> before the leaf-buds open. 

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