Looking to start a seedling peach landrace in zone 8b Alabama in hopes to address pests and problems associated with our very wet and humid climate. Early colonists (post Spanish introduction of peaches) had several reports of massive peach stands with some peaches reaching 13 inches in girth but after the colonists destroyed these stands and relied more on grafted peaches the native pests genetically caught up to the peaches. In order to grow peaches without sprays and pesticides the peaches need more genetic diversity. Among resistance to pests and diseases I will also be selecting for high precocity(fruiting in first or second year)and largish fruit. I have one unnamed variety of peach that fruits reliably with no fertilizer sprays or mulch but only ever produces 1-3 peaches as it is 4 feet tall and looks sick the whole year. If anyone has any info or sources of unique, feral or useful varieties of peach pits that would be greatly appreciated.
Maybe ask on Permies as well, they got a peach forum.
I’m in a frost-free climate, typically 150-250 chill hours. We’ve got a feral white nectarine tree on campus (we suspect Snow Queen descendant, which was bred by a Southern California nursery in the 1940’s) that I can send you a fresh stone from in a couple months. We think a baseball fan brought a fruit to a game, tossed the pit, and maybe had an assist from a squirrel. It’s a seedling tree in the fence between the batting cage and a flowerbed that we switched to dry climate culinary herbs (which is to say it’s growing on 12 inches of winter rainfall and once-a-month summer irrigation on one side only). It loads itself with very good-flavored fruit (definitely benefits from thinning), biggest downside is that it puts out twice as many watersprouts as the average peach/nectarine. It is fairly resistant to peach leaf curl.