Growing fruit trees on their own root stock?

  • 3 Replies
  • 1993 Views
*

Moosele

  • Newbie
  • *
  • 3
Growing fruit trees on their own root stock?
« on: August 22, 2010, 17:07 »
Hello all, long time lurker, first time poster!

We currently have several large fruit trees that were planted when the house was built in 1948 by a previous owner. We have after a lot of reading and several visits to apple identification days etc been told what variety they each are. So far so good, but then we were told that a couple of these were grown on their own rootstock? Having searched books and the internet we came across the work of Hugh Ermen who was doing this kind of work.

Has anyone any experience of growing fruit trees on their own rootstock? options seem to be grow some pips and then graft, or (air) layering. One tree is a Sparten and the other is either a Jumbo or a Newton Wonder.

The trees are in good condition, and have been prunned to rejunivate them. We have planted 10+ new fruit trees over the last few years to increase the size of the orchard and thought that it would nice to grow some from the existing trees if we could.

Any thoughts or advice would be most appreciated

Moosele :)

*

gillie

  • Senior Member
  • ****
  • Location: Oxfordshire. On top of the Chilterns
  • 884
Re: Growing fruit trees on their own root stock?
« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2010, 17:29 »
Pips will not come true from seed and trees on their own rootstock will probably grow very large, not crop for many years and may be inferior to their parents.  You can probably tell if your trees are grafted by looking for a sort of thickening and lumpiness in the trunk where the graft was made.

One thing to do would be to find someone who would graft material from your trees onto the rootstock of your choice.  Brogdale, where Hugh Ermen worked until his retirement, used to provide this service (I have two trees that Brogdale grafted for us) but I don't know if they still do.

However both Spartan and Newton Wonder are common varieties so you could just go out and buy genetically identical trees without any fuss.  I have not heard of Jumbo.

Red Devil and Scrumptious (which we were discussing in a different topic) are Hugh Ermen introductions.

Gillie

*

Moosele

  • Newbie
  • *
  • 3
Re: Growing fruit trees on their own root stock?
« Reply #2 on: August 22, 2010, 17:55 »
Thanks for the quick reply,

any pips grown would be to produce rootstock for grafting. Having grown apple trees as a child (about 4 years old) and waited some 17 years for fruit was a long time! Then discovered grafting onto a rootstock was the normal method! you live and learn. As for the size of the tree not a problem, garden well over a .25 acre and hopefully buying some of the surrounding farmland.

Have found both varieties locally, but wanted to try my hand at propergating by either grafting or layering and with such large specimins thought it would be a nice, to plant up the new area with their offspring. 

Moosele


*

gillie

  • Senior Member
  • ****
  • Location: Oxfordshire. On top of the Chilterns
  • 884
Re: Growing fruit trees on their own root stock?
« Reply #3 on: August 22, 2010, 18:12 »
You would do better to buy named rootstocks, which will give you more control over how large the tree eventually becomes and how quickly it crops.

Gillie


xx
fruit tree root stock ?

Started by ilan on Grow Your Own

3 Replies
1592 Views
Last post April 12, 2016, 00:16
by Trikidiki
xx
Bare root fruit trees

Started by Sandpit on Grow Your Own

7 Replies
3110 Views
Last post February 10, 2013, 16:36
by jonewer
xx
'Bare Root' fruit trees

Started by Wombat18 on Grow Your Own

3 Replies
2242 Views
Last post October 11, 2010, 11:25
by gillie
xx
Fruit Trees - Bare Root or Container

Started by happyplotter on Grow Your Own

6 Replies
2690 Views
Last post March 30, 2011, 16:48
by happyplotter
 

Page created in 0.602 seconds with 36 queries.

Powered by SMFPacks Social Login Mod
Powered by SMFPacks SEO Pro Mod |