Growing apple trees on their own roots?

Discussion in 'Fruit and Nut Trees' started by jascha, Apr 4, 2007.

  1. jascha

    jascha Active Member

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    I'm very interested in the possibility of growing some apple varieties on their own roots. I've read that apples on dwarfing rootstock almost always have different flavour, fruit shape, and other properties than those grown on their own roots. The next question is this: Has anyone here had good experiences in southwest BC with the use of layering techniques to encourage rooting on apple branches?
     
  2. Applenut

    Applenut Active Member

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    Jascha:

    Sorry, but apples are the same no matter what rootstock they're grown on. Even severely dwarfing rootstocks like M27 still produce full-sized apples just like those grown on seedling. The vigor of different apple varieties' own roots is highly variable, just like on seedling trees. Grafting scions onto seedling rootstocks with known attributes like Northern Spy or Antonovka gives more predictible performance.

    Still, trying to get apple cuttings to root would be a fun and inexpensive pasttime, even though it will be 5-10 years to see if your results prove any different than the same variety on grafted rootstock. Give it a shot.

    Applenut
     
  3. jascha

    jascha Active Member

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    Here is the article that got me interested in this:

    http://www.orangepippin.com/own-roots.aspx

    I'm mainly curious about the methods that people employ in BC for promoting root growth. I would like to try this experiment sometime. If I do go ahead with it, I would probably utilize a tripod planting configuration to encourage early cropping.
     
  4. Applenut

    Applenut Active Member

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    Jascha:

    What a great article! I've been a fan of Orangepippin.com for a while, but don't remember seeing that.

    It's now common for commercial growers to regulate tree size by causing it to fruit early and heavily, a method I'm now trying in the warm climate of Southern California. I can understand the logic behind having the rootstock perfectly timed with the cultivar, but still think some varieties have poor roots and are better off grafted onto a better one.

    But many of the methods are quite intriguing, and make for good clean fun. Please keep us informed with your experiments.

    Applenut
     
  5. orangepippin

    orangepippin Member

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    Sorry for the delayed posting and thanks for your comments re www.orangepippin.com. The Own Roots article was written by Hugh Ermen, an English expert on own roots. If you have any specific questions for him I can pass them on (email on the website).

    Regarding apple sizes, the comment by Applenut is not strictly true. If you take MM106 as an average then other things being equal (variety, conditions etc) you will get slightly bigger apples on M9, and slightly smaller on M27. Note that the size is nothing to do with the size of the actual tree either (MM106 trees would be bigger than both M27 and M9).
     
  6. Mark Fish

    Mark Fish New Member

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