Growing Peach Trees from Seed Naturally

I took a close look on my two year old peach tree and saw lots of flower buds!  Hopefully we will have a less erratic spring next year so I can have some peaches.

Kevin Young wrote:I planted some peach pits last fall and none of them came up (I am in northern Utah). Did you do anything special prior to planting? I'm surprised to see how quickly your peach trees have grown!

I can understand growing a locally-adapted annual vegetable, but growing a locally-adapted peach seems much harder due to the long time span between planting and harvesting. Do you have a timeline or specific plan you are working through? And if you obtain something you are really happy with, where do you go from there? Do you clone your new variety onto existing root stock, or do you keep on breeding?

If you have problems with sprouting peaches/nectarines or other stone fruits just do it like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=686fccM2Gmc

If you crack the pits open and soak the kernels/seeds in ordinary cold water in room temperature for 24+ hours(video says 12 hours but I like to do 24+ hours) and look closely you will find that almost all of them will already have tiny sprouts. After you plant in soil they will emerge as seedlings after just 3-4 weeks or so(sometimes more, sometimes less). A lot of peaches/nectarines that you buy especially early season varieties you buy in the store will have useless immature seeds though, so make sure that the seeds you are planting are actually the viable kind. The deflated/flat seeds that look like there's nothing inside them are usually useless and won't sprout in my experience, you want to plant the ones that look just like almonds do(usually peach kernels are smaller though, but you get the idea). Careful to not water too much and using too heavy of a soil because these seedlings I have noticed are very sensitive to damping off. And yes, this basically means that stratification is not an actual requirement to making these seeds germinate.

I did this again just 2-3 weeks ago using a few months old seeds and I already have a bunch of nectarine seedlings, and also apricot seedlings of several kinds including those from old dried up sweet apricot kernels that you can buy in a bag meant for eating just like you can buy sweet almonds. It's a super effective way to germinate peach and stone fruit seeds, just be careful to not damage the germ if you peel off the seed/kernel coating. I believe this also works with apples, pears and certain other seeds as long as you can peel off every coating down to the actual germ without damaging it. As a bonus it also works with English walnuts as well and I am guessing that likely the same goes for other walnuts and hickories if you carefully crack the shell around the pointy end and exposing the germ and leave the rest intact and give the seed a good, long soak before planting. Example on English walnut(I tried this method on freshly picked walnuts and it WORKS): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nPNd269q1I

Anyhow, if anyone here has trouble with growing peaches or nectarines or other stone fruits from seed just do it the way video/myself described and you will see a very, very high germination rate. And not just if you have trouble, it's good if you're impatient and want fast results or you find old peach/nectarine/stone fruit seeds in the spring or summer long after the winter has already passed.

Here are two different nectarine seedlings from a few seeds I planted only 2 ½ weeks ago using the crack pit, 24+ hour soak and peeling skin method which I then originally threw into a plastic bag with some soil mix in it until they came up as trees, one whom I have already put in a pot:
https://i.imgur.com/GK9kKdH.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/VRem56W.jpg

So you can grow peaches and nectarines just fine without stratification using this method, and this was not a serious attempt just something I did with a few spare seeds I had. Again this works on other stone fruits like plums and apricot seeds too and there are more seedlings to come!

By the way how come all peach tree threads are about peaches and not nectarines? Am I the only one here who prefers smooth skinned peaches aka nectarines?

I got my first fruit from a 4 year old seedling tree and it was delicious!!! Omg I was so excited! They were small, late (Sept), and a little tart, but whoah, the flavor was amazing, very dramatic. They might ripen sweeter in future years -- I had to take them in earlier than I wanted to because the neighbor workers had already asked for or stolen about half of the 25 fruits that were on the tree.

My first peach tree was started from a dried seed in early 2018 in a container, planted out onto the greywater canal in spring 2019, and produced fruit in 2021.

All my others were fresh seeds in a container of soil to stratify in late 2018, sown into a garden bed in early 2019, grew and survived two winters in the garden, were planted out onto barren canals in spring 2021, and have not yet fruited. I think I got about 50% germination and survival. Since I was planting seeds of peaches I'd eaten so I had plenty of seeds, and only wanted a maximum of 10 trees, this germination rate was more than enough for me.

In 2021 the first tree alone bloomed and set fruit with no pollination partner for miles around, so cross-pollination is evidently not necessary.

Peaches are not common in my region (the main fruits are apples and apricots, and I know of a few mulberry, pear and sour cherry trees at my altitude). The few local peaches I've eaten were very late and had not much flavor. I planted seeds from 2 local sources of peaches and 2 American sources of peaches, and I didn't keep track of which was which. A local govt. horticultural agency posted on social media recently that they have a good variety and can give scions to the public next year, so I'll be able to graft a good variety if any of mine turn out to be dull.

Good point about nectarines. I thought that nectarines (fuzzless peaches) would have to be grafted onto peach roots, and would not come fuzzless from seed, but maybe they would, since this year I learned that peaches can self-pollinate just fine.

That's a great looking seedling peach tree and peaches Rebecca!

Rebecca Norman wrote:I got my first fruit from a 4 year old seedling tree and it was delicious!!! Omg I was so excited! They were small, late (Sept), and a little tart, but whoah, the flavor was amazing, very dramatic. They might ripen sweeter in future years -- I had to take them in earlier than I wanted to because the neighbor workers had already asked for or stolen about half of the 25 fruits that were on the tree.

My first peach tree was started from a dried seed in early 2018 in a container, planted out onto the greywater canal in spring 2019, and produced fruit in 2021.

All my others were fresh seeds in a container of soil to stratify in late 2018, sown into a garden bed in early 2019, grew and survived two winters in the garden, were planted out onto barren canals in spring 2021, and have not yet fruited. I think I got about 50% germination and survival. Since I was planting seeds of peaches I'd eaten so I had plenty of seeds, and only wanted a maximum of 10 trees, this germination rate was more than enough for me.

In 2021 the first tree alone bloomed and set fruit with no pollination partner for miles around, so cross-pollination is evidently not necessary.

Peaches are not common in my region (the main fruits are apples and apricots, and I know of a few mulberry, pear and sour cherry trees at my altitude). The few local peaches I've eaten were very late and had not much flavor. I planted seeds from 2 local sources of peaches and 2 American sources of peaches, and I didn't keep track of which was which. A local govt. horticultural agency posted on social media recently that they have a good variety and can give scions to the public next year, so I'll be able to graft a good variety if any of mine turn out to be dull.

Good point about nectarines. I thought that nectarines (fuzzless peaches) would have to be grafted onto peach roots, and would not come fuzzless from seed, but maybe they would, since this year I learned that peaches can self-pollinate just fine.

Nice trees. I love seeing the natural form of peach trees that is being more of a bush/bushy tree than the typical trees we think of. Again the grafted trees sold at nurseries are a sham compared to these beautiful trees/tree-bushes grown from seeds!!

Nectarines will grow fuzzless that is still being nectarines from seed if the seed came from a flower self-pollinated or pollinated by another nectarine tree. The fuzz gene of peaches is dominant but if you get two recessive alleles from both parents it will end up being fuzzless ie a nectarine. So even a peach can give a nectarine from seed if both peach tree parents actually still carry one recessive allele/nectarine gene each for being fuzzless! Works the same way as inheriting light eye colour does in humans. Also as a whole nectarines and peaches grow true from seed even in other properties like 90% of the time, they are quite reliable to grow from seed! If you like a particular variety of peach/nectarine tree of yours you can always grow more clones on their own roots from cuttings and maintain that bushy way of growing compared to the grafted trees.

It took about two years for the pandemic to come to an end and a peach seed to turn into a mature tree. A really long time for the former but super speedy for the latter.

My oldest peach seedling is blooming prolificly this year! This photo was taken on March 17th. It is only 30 months old in this picture, and now there are a few peaches forming. I'll post some pictures of them soon.

We had some late freezes this year, and it is the only peach tree that held onto any fruit. I find that really interesting because I didn't expect it to have very cold hardy blossoms from the way they looked, but it is seeming to prove me wrong.

Great disease resistance....  Check

Vigorous while also having a natural open growing branch structure.... Check

Frost hardy blossoms....  Check

Now if only it has tasty fruit, this will be ONE AMAZING PEACH!

Yes! My oldest tree, planted from seed in 2018, produced about 20 to 25 fruit in 2021, now in April 2022 has bloomed much more prolifically. One of the other peach trees from seed a year younger than the oldest bloomed this year too. The oldest tree is sometimes fed by greywater so I think its soil is much richer than the others, and I suspect that's why the others that are only one year younger may take an extra year to produce fruit.

So exciting!

I grew two peach trees from seed and tried to transplant one to our property in NM (7000 ft zone 5B) and sadly, it didn't survive. The tree I still have here in the desert (9B) is still thriving. It blooms like crazy every year and is about 6 years old now. However, it stopped producing fruit last year and has no fruit this year either. I am perplexed.