* STRIBLING'S NURSERIES, MERCED, CALIFORNIA * 
Origin of 5-37 Rootstock 
In 1935 an experimental plot of three thousand seedlings of the 
ornamental flowering peach, Prunus persica var., in ten mixed color 
varieties, were planted in Stribling's Nurseries Experimental Grounds at 
Atwater, California. This plot wes set out primariiy to discover some 
possible control for Crown Gall. The sandy soil in the plot was heavily 
infested with Nematode. In the course of the experiments, several of the 
three thousand flowering peach seedlings seemed to show marked vigor in 
growth. These few vigcrous seedlings were seed sports -- natural variations 
off of the parent plant with certain new and unique characteristics. The 
unique characteristic in this this case wat an apparent marked resistance 
to the Nematode in the soil. 
The next step was to see if this resistance could be propagated and 
used on a commercial scale. Buds were taken from the selected few seedlings 
found most resistant and a seed orchard was set out to reproduce the seeds. 
The seedlings thus asexually reproduced were also found to be very resistant 
to Nematode, and successive generations were as well. The remarkable 
discovery was, that although there is naturally a lot of variation in pro- 
pagation by seeds, these seedlings were uniformly and consistently resistant 
to Nematode and also to Crown Gall. Further seedling selections were made, 
and the best was 8-37, S-37 being the code number used in the experimental 
plot. A large budded seed orchard of 5-37 was then set out and it now pro- 
duces all of the S-37 seeds used throughout the country. 
we pe 
S-37 - AMERICA'S FINEST PEACH ROOTSTOCK 
