I am not talking about root sprouts. I have seen it claimed in a few other spots around the net that by taking a piece of root from an apple tree one can propagate another tree from it.Any truth to this or are some people just getting lucky. For instance I have many apple hardwood cuttings that I have been successful in getting to root and grow well. But at the same time the vast majority that I have tried did not root. I am wondering if this is the same with being successful at using root cuttings.
There is truth to this for apples and pears. I have dug both types of seedlings out to transplant them and unintentionally grew 5 or 6 new trees. That’s not true of the rootstocks I have bought rather only the ones I have raised from seed. Here is some additional info about rootstocks professional grown , locations etc http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/80600500/Gennaro/AJourneythroughthedevelopmentofimprovedapplerootstocks.pdf
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Interesting you also mention pears , I have a fairly decent sized pear tree that I could dig all the roots I wanted from as it needs to be removed from where it is.
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I tried some root cuttings of Bud 118 this year, I made 6" pencil thick sections in the fall and kept them in damp peat for the winter in my coldcellar. About half had started forming an initial for a shoot when I checked in the early spring. Seems like a viable way to clone an apple tree.
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Thanks Jesse
I was looking at if this would also work for seedlings and or mature apple trees on seedling rootstock. I dug about three dz. root sprouts in the middle of last summer( that all made it and are doing well)i from under a 100 + year old yellow transparent tree. They were growing in clumps from a couple large roots that appeared to be rotting. I did my best to separate the individual shoots from the root. The last couple got transplanted with the remains of the root they had sprouted from, and by the end of summer that root(that was transplanted with the root sprout) was sending up a bunch of new shoots . Now the question is if that same root was transplanted without the root sprout if it would also send up shoots.
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I replanted a Callery pear about six years ago and I have gone back and dug about 7 sprouts from the roots. In fact all my pear trees are from this original Callery. My apple beds mostly consist with roots salvaged from M111 and Bud9 roots. Bill
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It sounds like it is a promising method to try to see if it is reliable way to propagate on a small scale. The next question is just how to do it and how big of a piece of root is needed , etcetera ? Any suggestions ? We have a lot of snow cover right now but, it has also been a very warm winter for us and as of few days ago there still wasn’t frost in the ground yet. I have several two year old rootstocks that I think would be easy to dig to give it a try ?
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I did not have the experience with 111 or similar apple rootstocks people are reporting. That experience is likely due to location (meaning Kansas is less hospitable to fruit trees) and it may be age of trees when dug (more roots). Soil structure is a factor also because I once filled a hole with cow manure just because I was out of dirt and talk about a lot of sprouts (because the soil medium was loose). A friend with an orchard in Kansas digs up hundreds of trees a year and to my knowledge without any of them sprouting from roots. What i’m getting at is I think there are more factors like annual rainfall, weather at time of digging (spring preferred I think). Variety is a key factor eg, callery pears are tough. in my opinion Callery roots sprout faster and easier than other pears in all locations so I simply think they do it less well here. Back to your question of how much root and I believe that varies depending on location, weather etc. If we have 2 feet of root it would likely sprout with very little if any care in standard clay soil. If it was 4 inches maybe it will sprout and maybe it wont but if you keep it wet and it’s the right variety, warm this spring etc it likely would do great.
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There might be a better method than this but I like to keep it simple. During the dormant period take off a section of root 6" long or more is better. Plant just like a tree but let about 2" stick out like the trunk. The ones I have done start putting on growth soon after the other trees leaf out. I would not be to quick to think they will not sprout.
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Well I dug up the one seedling I wanted to move anyway and took a couple root cuttings and planted them along with replanting the seedling rootstock (in the house). I also dug up some other root sprouts along with root sections from another mature tree. The roots of this tree had developed a burl underground where everything was sprouting from . I am also planting parts of the burl that I chopped off along with the root sprouts.
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Just a quick update on my experiment . I planted some of the rootcuttings and rootsprouts in clear plastic cups and they are showing life. The rootcuttings are making new roots and trying to push growth from the top of the cutting. The rootsprouts ,many were just broken off the main root without any roots of their own , are leafing out and also showing signs of making their own root system.
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Wanted to post one last update on this so others know this works at least for apples. I really didn’t do anything special and tried several different root cuttings of several different qualities and had a high success rate getting them to sprout and leaf out. Here is a pic of one , for some reason some of the leaves are not green.
What you see in back of the root cutting is my trays of sprouted apple seeds. Here is a pic of them !
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Nice apples, I liked the deer racks too.
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I can’t wait to see that apple orchard in 5 years. Should be some really special apples come out of there.
Plan on using most of these for rootstock but any with red leaves and wood I plan on saving just to see. This year I do plan on selecting seeds from certain wild apple trees with certain characteristics and keeping track of those seedlings to see what they produce. Right now I am concentrating on starting my orchard with the wild apples I have already found along with many already named varieties. I still have many hundreds of wild apple trees to check out this year in another spot that I never got to this past year.
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How did everyon’so root cutting seedlings grow. Have they been planted out?
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Both root cuttings and seedlings have done great some were grafted to named varieties and others were let grow and are several ft tall as of now .
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