Zone 4 peach and apricots?

Anyone have any experience growing these in zone 4? Is it true
that buds die over winter if -20For below for these even if the trees are hardy to zone4?

Trying to determine if bending down branches and covering with snow is a must or not to ensure some buds survive with insulation... too many mixed signals online.

Also does anyone have experience with reliance peach trees? Half sources I see online say self fertile and other half say a 2nd cultivar is needed to get fruit. Would be great to get first hand experience to clarify.

I have found Fedco trees to be a great place to get zone 4 and lower fruit trees. They have a number of peaches that are rated as Zone 4 and some warm pockets of zone 3. Reliance is one of these. On their website it says that peaches are self fertile, however you will notice an increase in setting of peaches with a secondary source of pollen, But it is not necessary.
As to my own encounter with reliance peaches, I planted mine last year. I have had almost no winter kill on the tips. It is also setting a huge amount of blooms. Coming from fedco the tree seems primed to realize the many fake springs that we encounter here on the high desert and hesitates to bloom until the spring is actually warming up. We had a pretty cold winter here, down to -20 with wind. I do not have any windbreaks. You can grow all fruit trees as a step over espalier. Which could be set at the height of the average snow bank. It also might help with windburn and extended winter problems such as sun scald. However some people have said it is more difficult to manage vermin like mice and rats. I have found growing fruit next to your house or other outbuilding increases their ability to overwinter in difficult cold areas. I really like writers who have to deal with variabilities in weather with fruit like Lee Reich and Michael Phillips, and for veggies Elliot Coleman and Nikki Jabbour.
I hope I answered some of your questions.
cheers,
Candice

I have had bitter-kernel apricot trees for decades.  Maintenance free, easy to start from seed, free volunteer seedlings from squirrels burying the pits, fast growing, hardy, pretty when flowering.  I am just starting sweet-kernel apricot trees this year.  I have had winter temperatures as low as -50F.  Strong, bitter winter winds and blizzards are common events.  Never had any freeze out or burned tips.  Fruit harvests are sporadic because the trees often bloom before any pollinating insects are out yet, such timing is consistently off.  I seem to get a heavy harvest once a decade or so (wheelbarrow loads full of apricots), a few average harvest years, and the rest of the years poor or nonexistent harvests.  In 2021 the trees bloomed on April 01.  This year 2022 the trees have not bloomed as of April 24 and the buds are not even swollen yet due to below average temps and very few sunny days.  As a result of this unusual delay I expect a bumper fruit production year and the timing is about right.  Time will tell.

Edit to add that my apricot trees are non-grafted Manchurians.  I used to have cultivars Moongold and Sungold.  They were consistently poor quality trees, relatively short-lived, consistently poor producers, and a complete waste of time and money for me.  Several Manchurians that I had planted years before the cultivars were purchased and planted are still alive and healthy a decade after those cultivars died out and were removed in disgust.  This experience was the final straw for me regarding buying overpriced grafted fruit tree cultivars, especially the new varieties.  I find them all to be inherently disease-prone and weak in many other respects, especially compared to the old varieties.  My solution has been to learn how to graft, use my own rootstock, and keep my eyes open for robust old local fruit trees of note for scions.  This solution has been much more successful, far cheaper, and more personally satisfying and fun.

I would never bother trying to grow peaches due to my growing conditions but I knew someone in a nearby small town in a sheltered valley who had two wonderful peach trees for decades that survived just fine and produced wonderful fruit.  The house was sold and the new owner cut down the trees because he did not want them and he felt they interfered with his lawn. <eye roll>

Do you know of a source for purchasing the wild apricot seeds to plant?  

I'm not interested in the cultivated or grafted trees.  I want something that will be wild or native to plant near my woods that will survive without sprays etc.

Sammy Land wrote:Do you know of a source for purchasing the wild apricot seeds to plant?.

I just ordered raw apricot kernels from 3 different vendors on ebay from different countries. They are labelled as organic, raw, untreated, etc, so I'm assuming they will germinate. Once I get them I will plant  them right away in the ground, so after cold stratification they should emerge in spring.
You asked for "wild". What do you mean as wild? Regular apricot growing in the wild or some other species than Prunus armeniaca or Prunus mandshurica/?

I'm also interested in obtaining apricot tree seeds, but I'm looking for ones that have sweet pit variety parents, especially Hunza and Chinese Sweet Pit/Mormon/Chinese Golden/Large Early Montgamet. (That second one has four different names!) I'm also interested in Shaa-Kar Pareh Persian apricot/myrobalan plum hybrid as well. I live in zone 8, so I'm more interested in late bloomers that have edible kernels and that taste good.

I've had good luck growing Indian Blood Free peaches and Creswell apricots from seed here in Oregon.

I have Frost and Indian Blood Free peach seeds to trade, in case you might be interested and live in the United States.