Saving a Favorite Peach by Grafting

Peaches can be grown on their own roots by cuttings or by seed. Of course growing a peach from seed introduces all sorts of diversity that you may or may not want. If this is a favorite peach then vegetative propagation....propagation without sex...is preferred. Vegetative propagation be done through the rooting of  cuttings is probably the best and easiest to do if their own roots are good enough for its natural size or location. Rootstocks may be selected for decreasing the size of the mature plant, disease resistance, high salts in the soil and other reasons. For peaches the most usual reasons are for different soil types.

Grafting and Budding

Sometimes grafting the plant is recommended. Commercially, grafting the old fashioned way (side grafting, approach grafting, bench grafting) is seldom recommended. Instead, a practice called "budding" is preferred. Budding removes (cuts) a bud from the desired tree and inserts it into the seedling of another, the rootstock. This inserted bud is wrapped in stretchable plastic until new growth coming from it is seen. Once you are sure it is growing strongly and will not die, everything above this new growth is cut away....removed. The new plant is a "grafted" peach tree consisting of its rootstock and new growth (scion). 

Wine grape grafted onto a rootstock selected for soil types and disease resistance.

Remnants of this "graft" is called a "dogleg" that may visually disappear in a few years.

Dogleg resulting probably from budding.