Bug:

Peach scionwood that is half the size of a pencil is inadequate for performing grafts. Whether or not it is "marketable" depends on whether you can find someone who wants a Jim Dandy peach tree, has a rootstock or young peach tree in place, and does not know that.

I have to hand it to you for imagination, buying a nursery tree, snipping off the feathers, and thinking of selling them. I guess just about anything goes in these E-Bay ridden days.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

I better add this to my post...

I don't want anyone to think this is a "get rich quick scheme." I am new at raising fruit trees and have learned A LOT from this forum and other websites. One thing I have learned is that a lot of folks do a lot of grafting on their trees. This is a subject which interests me, as well, although my trees are too young, I think, to begin to start grafting onto them. I have seen posts where people are looking for scionwood, and just thought that I could help someone out. Maybe I should have used the word "usable" instead of "marketable."

TheBug

Bug,

Not only what Don said, but you cannot be certain you actually have the tree that the label said until you fruit it and see the identifying characteristics etc. Talk to just about anyone who grows fruit, and you will hear massive mislabeling/screwup stories, even from dependable local nurseries! I have had it happen to me. All it takes is an illiterate person tying tags onto a tree, or another person not really paying attention, or kids playing tricks and switching tags for fun, another person who could care less, or another with comprimised ethics, etc etc.

A local prune farmer told me that 25 years ago, he CONTRACTED with a nursery for a bunch of xyz prune trees (40 acres worth). He got the trees alright, but they were not exactly the trees he specified 100%. There was a whole swack of them which bear prunes yes, but did not have the freestone, and also grew branches much differently. He never did get the alternate prune ID'd. This could have been a case of scion wood mixup, whoever collected, stored it or used it.

A lady friend of mine bought what she were told were 3 European pears locally. When they fruited, they all were Asian. labeling mixup. She doesn't want Asian pears!

I once bought a Red Delicious apple from Home Depot. Turned out to be some sort of Yellow Delicious. It has since been topworked into other varieties. Expensive rootstock is all it was.

Peach is usually budded in the summer heat from summer wood. I find it pretty hard to get any sort of takes from using dormant scion wood as the heat units just are not there in my climate, and peach & apricot need heat to callus to any degree.

Bug:

It seems reasonable that it was just a poor choice of words that led you to use "marketable" vice "useable". It did sound as if you were trying to squeeze a few bucks out of your new little tree.

Just FYI, while the right scion may be of interest to the right person at the right time, there is no great scramble to lay hands on valuable scions. When I prune my trees, I take off several pickup loads of scions of all types of apple, pear and stone fruits, and take them to the dump for grinding and recycling. While it is possible that some of my potential scions may be of interest to someone, the devil is in the details.

When scions are traded on forums like this, it is usually without monetary compensation, or for an SASE.

Meanwhile, your order of business is not to be worrying about scions, but to get your new tree off to a good start.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Don,

Thank you for the advice. My main concern is getting my trees properly pruned so as to have the proper form as they mature. The "scions" are heading to the compost pile!

In the future, I would like to try my hand at grafting, as it seems very interesting.

I would like some info on this particular variety of peach, as I have never heard of it before, and I am having a hard time finding anything about it on the web.

TheBug

Bug:

I found a little info on Jim Dandy, but can't tell you where as I was just puttering around. Apparently, JD rivals Reliance in its bud and blossom hardiness, just as your nursery told you, which is a good feature. I did not find anything specific about JD flavor or other characteristics, but my feeling is all home grown peaches are good. I grow Reliance, which is often derided as a poorly-flavored peach grown just for hardiness, but I think it is just fine. We freeze Reliance along with the others, and frankly I can hardly tell the difference if it is ripened on the tree. Of course, ripening on the tree is the hard part with any peach in the eastern U.S.

Of course, I am not what you would call an epicure. For example, I also like Jell-o.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Plumfan's right - until you fruit this one out, you can't be certain that it is true to name.
I've had more than one tree, purchased from reputable nurseries, that were something other than what they came labeled as.
I have a friend who bought a 'Santa Rosa'(should be a plum) tree at one of the big box stores several years ago, but it turned out to be a Fuyu-type Asian persimmon.
I have it from a reliable source, that sometimes, the big box stores buy overruns, seconds, etc. from some of the big propagators down at McMinnville TN, and apply their own tags - so the pears may all be Bartlett, Orient, or Keiffer, etc., regardless of what variety they really are.

Hi- I realize that you originally posted this three years ago, but you did not get much info, on Jim Dandy peaches. My father James Friday, bred this variety back in the 1980's. We have a fruit farm in Coloma, Michigan, in the SW portion of the state. At least half of our farm is peaches. My father discovered that the peaches on one of the branches on a Red Haven tree, looked different. He decided to propagate it,and this discovery got him started in the nursery business. Jim Dandy ripens just a few days after Red Haven, and is a free stone, and tastes similar to a Red Haven. My father died in 1989, and so did the nursery. One of my sisters is running the farm now with her husband, and they have one of the largest private peach breeding programs in the country. She has a website, and if you have any further questions about peaches in general, or more specifically Jim Dandy, you can email her. Her farm is called Fruit Acres, and her website is: http://www.fruitacresfarm.com

Here is a link that might be useful: Fruit Acres Farm