Nematode-Resistant 
Peach Rootstocks 
ROOT-KNOT of peach, caused, by a small, 
almost microscopic worm oalled a NEMATODE 
has long been a serious problem in the warm, 
well-aerated soils of the Southern United States. 
© Peach roots are so severely attacked by the 
nematodes that peach orchards are a failure on 
many deep, sandy or sandy loam soils that could 
otherwise support profitable crops of peaches. 
© The nematode frequently kills trees outright, 
as illustrated in the lower picture at the left 
showing the stumps of a large number of trees 
killed during the summer of 1939 in a North 
Texas orchard. This large vacant spot is being 
constantly enlarged as the nematodes are 
spreading rapidly to other trees. The owner told 
me that he had already lost 200 bearing trees 
and that he was afraid he was going to lose his 
entire orchard in a few years. 
© In many cases, under some conditions, in¬ 
fested trees are not killed, but are so weakened 
that the trees are stunted and bear small crops 
of inferior fruits. The tree marked with an ar¬ 
row in the left hand upper illustration shows a 
peach tree with its root system so weakened by 
nematode that it lost its foliage during the mid¬ 
dle of the summer. 
m At left, roots of the ordinary peach tree severiy afjected by Nematode. At right, roots ! 
or Shalil, resistant to Nematode, entirely free and healthy. These trees were both grown by i 
the U. S. Dept, of Agriculture in experiments at Ft. Valley Ga. 
© For a number of years we have offered paper- 
shell pecan trees on our “tested rootstocks,” and 
now we take great pleasure in offering a limited 
number of peach trees of suitable varieties bud¬ 
ded on Shalil and Yunnan, two of the nematode 
resistant rootstocks imported by the U. S. Gov¬ 
ernment from China. These peach trees have 
never before been for sale or been available to 
orchardists in our territory that we know of. 
“Good Blood at BOTH ENDS of the Tree” 
© So far as we know, there is no other satis¬ 
factory way to grow peaches successfully in 
spite of nematodes, or to insure against future 
destruction of an orchard by them, is to bud our 
standard varieties on these resistant stocks, 
which means a tree with “good blood at BOTH 
ends.” Don’t you agree that this is cheap insur¬ 
ance for orchards? 
O. S. Gray Pecan Nursery Arlington, Texas 
