New peach trees from old ones??

I've been gardening, growing fruit trees for almost 40 years now, however, I have never attempted to graft any. We bought a piece of land in August and are still learning what all we have on it. One day while chasing a chicken into the woods I stumbled across a peach, fully ripe, and a free-stone to boot. Only then did I realize that I had a very old peach tree.

It isn't pruned well at all, needless to say (property's been empty for about 20 years). It has a main stem with a couple of long straggly branches coming off it. The only leaves are on the last three feet of each branch probably 12 feet up. The tree is also against the corner of a building. Nothing about this peach tree is ... ideal.

What I'd like to do is cut the two branches that are still growing and either root them or graft them onto another stock but I don't know how to do that or even if it's possible with such an old tree. What steps would I need to take? Can it be done in the fall/winter? We are expecting our first freeze this weekend. Or do I need to wait until spring? What kind of root stock would I use/how would I root them?

Thanks

You could definitely try some hardwood cuttings this winter. I haven't had the best of luck (low %) with softwood cuttings under IM mist but am trying a bunch of hardwood cuttings this winter too.

Here's a link, several other methods to try too... http://fruitandnuteducation.ucdavis.edu/fruitnutproduction/Stone_Fruit_Propagation/sfcuttings/

Large old wood does not graft well. The graft can not supply such a large limb with food and water, and mechanically keeping the pieces together would be difficult. However, you could take small cutting of new, young wood to graft onto a rootstock elsewhere. Water sprouts often work well. Cuttings should be taken when the tree is dormant. You could probably buy rootstock trees from a specialty mail order nursery.

Also, if the tree is sick, disease will spread to the new grafted tree easily. And, it will probably be several years before a grafted tree produces.

Thanks for the links and thoughts on this. Since I've never grafted anything I'll have to study up. This might be one of those situations where we just have to plant new trees. The old peach tree is up against the house, less than a foot from the foundation so leaving it is not really an option long term. I guess I can always try and if it works, we'll be ahead and if not, we can shed a few tears and buy something new.

I'm always game for a challenge.

Raintree Nursery has good rootstocks for around 3.00. They have different varieties for different soils.

Definitely try rooting cuttings and grafting, so fun to learn!
Late fall and winter are great for trying hardwood cuttings-


Late winter is great time since they are dormant but soon to wake up.  Get some rootstocks from ^Raintree and try it out with some cuttings/scion of your old tree.  
Here's 2 videos but there are so many available-



Good luck!

Sorry, not peach related.  But it is a fruit tree, this seemed to be the newest thread sort of in the topic.

I suppose many of you are in spring now.  I've had a foot or more of snow in the last week.  Spring is a ways off.

About 7-10 days ago, I had a visit from a calf moose that is 9-10 months old.  Probably means Mom got killed in hunting season, or by a vehicle on the highway although other possibilities exist.

In 35 years, we have had no serious problems with deer (including moose and elk) debarking a tree.  In one day, this calf moose got two mountain ash, one cherry (ornamental, not fruiting) and two apples (different varieties, both unknown).

By and large, he "ringed" all these trees, and as I understand things, there is not a lot I can do to save these trees.  There might be isolated branches here and there which may bud.

Is there some way I can take a cutting off both (one in particular) trees, and get a start on regrowing the tree?

Many of the trees on the property are grafted, I don't know if these two apples are grafted.  The "cherry" is actually the roots  growing into a tree from a failed graft.

Thanks.

Oh.  Last summer/fall, I collected a bunch of apples from both trees, which started to rot before I got around to processing them (to make cider).  Partially because I was trying to make cider vinegar from excess green apples from earlier in the summer.

In any event, those apples by and large got buried into two (three?) holes, which were then covered up with the sod (fescue in clay).  So there are a bunch of apple seeds potentially available.

The mountain ash you can probably replace from a local nursery.
If you are patient you should try grafting for the Cherry and Apples. Take several cuttings of the year old sticks now, and keep them in a ziplock bag in the fridge.
Order some rootstock, most is picked over by now unfortunately so good luck, from Raintree, Cummins Nursery, Treeco, etc. Then graft onto the new rootstocks per the videos above.  (I  did a couple videos on YouTube, and Stephen Hayes is good too) Abundant Design on YouTube
If you are impatient, you can buy bigger trees from your local nursery in varieties of your choice.
If you want to try to save the trees you can try bridge grafting Bridge Grafting on YouTube

I'll probably replace the mountain ash with something that isn't mountain ash.  If I had my druthers, I would replace the cherry with a black cherry.  But it looks like too risky a tree to plant.  Honey locust?

I am guessing that you are pretty sure that the apples are both grafted.  I don't know, there are no records from when they were placed 35 or so years ago.  But it is unusual for apple trees to grow here.  In the early years, those trees probably seen -40C (or -40F).  Crab apples grow here, but full size is unusual.  One is red fleshed, the other is yellow.

I can keep cuttings in the fridge.

i dont know in a cold climate but if the damage is a couple feet of the ground you could cut it ands it should be above where the graph is
the ash and cherry work well with cutting back to a cupple feed dont know about apple though
could also do this
again i only dont this in a southern california