How soon does a Peach tree grown from seed start producing fruit?

tlbean2004

9 years ago

Just asking because the grafted ones seem to produce early. I received a bareroot peach a couple od years ago. It was just a stick about 3/4 inch in diameter. It grew very well the first year and fruited the second year. I only got one peach though because the squirrels beat me to it!

And i suspect that when young, the trees that produce so many fruit will cause branches to break...

Featured Answer

nmfruit

9 years ago

I have grown several peach trees to fruiting age from pits. I have rarely had growing conditions that would allow the trees to set that heavily (late frosts, etc). I do thin on any tree that appears to need it, but this was not the case when I first got started. To weigh in on your particular questions I would say:

Yes, peach trees grown from pits fruit quite soon (year three or four in my case)
Yes, peach trees do tend to overbear. BUT, in my opinion a seedling tree "left alone" for 10 years is highly unlikely to end up disfigured from overproduction, unless "left alone" means given the utmost in growing conditions and the best climate. There are dozens of such trees that I can think of where I live (both seedling and grafted), and none of them seem to have this trouble. In fact, of those that even produce crops of peaches, none have ever grossly overproduced.

I guess the bottom line is, nature figures it out. Oh, and peaches are a very ancient fruit, but it was recently discovered that they have been modified exceedingly little from their wild state! In other words, no major genetic differences were discovered in the remains of pre-domestication peaches compared with modern ones. This cannot be said for the majority of other commonly grown domesticates.

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Comments (6)

fruitnut Z7 4500ft SW TX
9 years ago
A peach seedling will fruit about as soon as a grafted variety.

Nearly any peach will set enough fruit to break branches. There is only one solution: thin and thin heavily. But hey if you like small fruit with inferior taste and a broken down tree don't thin.
tlbean2004
Original Author
9 years ago
So, if you plant a seedling and forget about and dont thin the fruit will it have broken branches?
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Embothrium
9 years ago
Grafted stock has the sexual maturity of the bud-wood source plants whereas seedlings do not. So I wouldn't count on seedlings being as precocious as grafted specimens. However in either case there will be no significant amount of fruit produced until the trees get big enough for this to become possible - you are never going to get dozens of peaches off of a little stick whatever it is.

Probably more important is that a seedling is not a clone of the parent plant and may vary from it in fruit characteristics. Maybe sometimes quite a bit.
tlbean2004
Original Author
9 years ago
Yes, i know its not a clone. It just seems weird that a tree that fruits cant hold its peaches. I just want to know if you plant a seed and leave it alone for say 10 years, will it have tons of broken branches or be ok?
urbanfarmer7b
9 years ago
There are two drivers to why it is likely to fall apart. On the one side, there is an evolutionary advantage to overproduce. Sorry to anthropomorphize, but all the peach wants to do is have as many viable seeds with enough flesh on them to make them attractive to animals to spread them. Their goal is not to make the perfect peach for humans. Then on top of that, the peach is one of the oldest cultivated fruits, so humans have been trying to select for the perfect peach for thousands of year. Usually for larger fruit has and more consistent cropping. But you can only bend the will of the peach so much. You can't let the peach go wild and expect it to do well, at least not in one generation. It will grow too many peaches that are too heavy. It would be the same as turning domesticated turkeys or cows loose and expect them to revert back to their wild ancestry in one or two generations. Now, American Persimmon, or Paw Paws... you are good to go.