[NAFEX] Hardy Prunus, was Re: Staking of immature fruit trees
Douglas Woodard
dwoodard at becon.org
Sun Nov 15 15:54:02 EST 2009
Those in Zone 4 who really like peaches and are on well-drained sandy
soil might want to see if they like the mandschurica/armeniaca cross
prairie-hardy apricots, like Westcot and Morden 604. They might only get
a crop 2 years out of 5 but that's better than nothing, and they are a
pretty tree.
Those on heavier soil could try St. Julien A rootstocks if they have
reliable heavy snow cover.
Or they could experiment with the compatibility of Krikon Damson roots
or interstems, or Yellow Egg (might be marginally hardy) interstems on
hardy plum stocks. Pershore Yellow Egg is considered compatible with
apricot in Britain, and I presume that the North American Yellow Eggs
are related, though that is certainly not conclusive.
And, if you haven't considered quality plums and you can handle black
knot, you should think about plums, maybe start with Mount Royal (hardy
to about Agriculture Canada zone 4a). Commercial plum growers, for
respectable commercial reasons, insist on picking plums unripe. If you
haven't eaten a properly ripened high-quality plum (and I expect that
most beginning home growers haven't) you don't know what you're missing.
The Minnesota station had Krikon Damsom (still popular in Sweden,
possibly hardy to about 3b, at any rate a little hardier than Mount
Royal) around 1950 and perhaps they still do. I think Agriculture Canada
still has it in their collection.
Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
Richard MURPHY wrote:
[snip]
> If anybody knows of a 'no-brainer' peach tree for zone 4, please
> describe it !!
> As for today, I know of no reliable type of peach for that climate.
[snip]
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