New person here! I received a Golden Russett Apple tree on M111 that is far too big for my espalier plans. I wanted to do a double U Lorette Apple espalier but this tree has no branching on the lower 3 feet of the tree. I was hoping I would receive a whip but alas this tree looks quite old. What should I do? Take some scionwood in the winter and try to graft myself onto a new M111 rootstock? (my first grafting attempts were this spring. Not sure how successful I’ll be). Or try to bud graft two buds laterally lower on the tree? Hack it down at 1 foot and put in two cleft grafts? Any help appreciated thanks!
4 Likes
Welcome Nicole! I would probably chop it down while dormant and regrow if you like the variety or cleft graft if you don’t. If you want symmetry you would be best served by having the same variety on a horizontal rung. I.e. if you have different variety for left and right on the same rings they will grow differently and you will always be fighting that (though it is certainly possible to do)
Looks like a lot of wood for the amount of roots in a 20 liter pail too - so might be happier after transplant after som chopping of the top
2 Likes
Hello Nicole
welcome on the forum 
awesome that you have an intrest in espalier tree’s. And you already started grafting!! 
thats an awesome skill to have for espaliering tree’s.
I love espaliers myself. But am in no way an expert (yet)
There are a few things you can do to form your first 2 horizontal branches.
(use 2 branches that are roughly at the same hight. Or if you want it more “perfect”. prune back, let it grow from latent buds. prune back let it grow 1 branch prune that next year to latent buds or, strong bud you prune after 4th leaf. Chip or T bud 2 oposing buds etc)
However, before we get into that.
You say you want an “double U Lorette apple espalier”
The terms are somtimes a bit vague and ambigious.
Dubble U is used to refer to the thee’s scaffold branch shape.
Lorrette is a style of pruning, that increases fruit spurs (smal fruiting “side braches”). But can be used on all kind of tree shapes.
so far so good
However the dubble U shape is quite a small tree shape. Roughly 5-6 foot wide. and most people keep it under 7 foot in heigth.
MM111 are really vigerous roots for such a small tree shape.
How much space do you want your espalier to fill up?
And do you need it to be “perfect” or is it more a fun experiment you want to try out?
How patiant are you? Do you need it to be “done in 3 years” or do you have time to do it “properly”
If it’s a hobby your serious about (espaliering trees) a good book might be a worthwhile investment.
I myself have
https://www.permacultuurboeken.nl/index.php/permacultuurl/product/de-teelt-van-leifruitbomen
click the picture of the book. The drawing is of an gaucher palmet. Incredibly beatiful.
Unfortunatly the book is in dutch. But maybe some-one else knows an english book thats comparable.
I myself am grafting a lot of “dubble” chip buds.
1 Like
Fedco? I also got a real monster of a golden russet from them last week. Although that suites my plans for the tree nicely.
Nicole a simple way to do it. Actually two ways. Three ways. Oscars will give you two identicle arms, if you can pull it off. Also if you cut the tree above three buds (at your desired height), one will grow up and the others can be trained, one to the left, and one to the right. Pick off any other shoots that might want to grow. If you don’t desire the current variety., cut the tree off well below your future desired first level. Graft on to the stump, it lends itself to a cleft graft. Later if both take, eliminate the weaker shoot. This year let the new graft grow as tall and vigourous as it desires, Next year go with oscars idea or cut back the new graft to three buds and take it from there.
1 Like
Oscar, you think if I just whack it off at knee height some latent buds will emerge? Otherwise I can try the other techniques. For cleft grafting should I wait until it’s dormant next winter? This tree appears to be just starting to break dormancy.
Yes Iowa it’s from Fedco 
. I don’t usually order from them but Cummins Nursery was out of that variety.
Thanks for all the help everyone! I’ve attached the picture of the Lorette double u system. I need to use M111 rootstock due to my soil and my desire to not stake this tree.
1 Like
Sorry Oscar I just realized I didn’t answer all your questions. As I understand it, the tree is “de-vigored” by the sap suffering two 90 degree turns in its way to the fruit, so M111 isn’t such a huge tree using this technique. I have some regular espaliered trees and would be okay to use that form if that’s the best I can get from this current tree. I want to keep the tree under 6 feet
Doesn’t need to be perfect and I have lots of patience. I already have four regular espalier trees, and a Lorette vase-pruned tree in its second year that is my main experiment
Could you awnser my questions. Will make it easier to give some advise.
first off. i have no mature espalier tree’s. So my advise is from books. And what other more experianced people told me. Not directly from my own experiance.
I think if you prune it well above the graft union (leaving a piece of the variety)
It is really likely to wake up latent buds. Nothing in fruit tree growing is 100% garanteed though.
grafting question is a little harder. If you where using fully dormant scion wood from the fridge. And the tree was waking up. You would have the ideal situation. Where the “woken up” stock heals together with the “more dormant” scion.
However i this case i asume you don’t have scion wood in the fridge. But your cutting it from the tree. It likely can still be used for sucsful grafting if only a few buds are slightly waking up. but if you got complete leafs your chances go downhil fast.
I would try and graft with the most dormant parts. (usualy the buds at the base of the branches)
You can do a cleft graft. Try the dubble chip bud below that on the stem. (you can even chip bud 4 times)
the tree likely has enough roots to make all 3-5 grafts grow. And there is a chance some grafts might not take.
In that scenario, even if no grafts take, you can stil have the tree grow from latent buds.
depending on what happens, if the grafts take or not you can continue on.
An inportant thing to know though is “how perfect you want it” Doing it “perfect” like on your posted picture for the dubble U. They are talking about stipulary buds. If im not mistaken. Those are the latent buds that form in the “ring” you get where a bud grew into a shoot last year.
Those will get you 2 branches starting at exactly the same hight. But will cost you an extra year in the formation of your tree.
Welcome to the forum, Nicole.
One thing that hasn’t come up is that Golden Russet leans toward tip-bearing, which isn’t ideal for espalier and especially the more restricted espalier forms, like the double U.
For that kind of project, I think you’d ideally want something that is pretty vigorous but spurs up readily. (You want it to be pretty vigorous because you’re going to be cutting it back a lot during the growing season, and you want it to spur readily because you’re going to need it to form lots of spurs off vertical scaffolds.)
Personally I might go for something like Tydeman’s Late Orange or maybe Belle de Boskoop, probably on a somewhat less vigorous rootstock. (Both of those varieties have the added benefit of attractive bloom, which would be a nice feature for this kind of espalier.)
As a disclaimer, I’m speaking from second-hand info here - I’m not growing Golden Russet myself, and while I am growing most of my trees in espalier form, I haven’t attempted a U or double-U. So, take this for what it is worth.
1 Like
JinMA, thanks for bringing this up. I had no idea it was a tip bearer. Rats. This tree will not work with my plans, but best to find out now instead of 7 years from now!
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news in that regard! If you’re already growing several other espalier trees, a well-grown Golden Russet like the one you have there might be an excellent foundation for a multi-graft tree that would let you add other varieties that tend toward tip-bearing. (I’m planning to try this using Blenheim Orange as a base and adding things like St. Edmund’s Russet and Cornish Gilliflower.) And Golden Russet might be something that you could espalier successfully in less restrictive forms. I believe that @HollyGates has had success with GR in a horizontal cordon. But a double U strikes me as being trickier to pull off with something that tends toward tip-bearing.
1 Like
Good points here about both tip bearing and the rootstock! As you have concluded, probably not the right tree to do your espalier. If the alternative were to scrap the tree entirely, you could chop it way down and try to graft an interstem in to limit size and a variety on top better suited to what you want to do. Might work out, but maybe better to start over with new stocks.
I actually have Roxbury Russet on a 5 tier horizontal cordon and that works ok. I had originally wanted Golden Russet but I was scared off by the reports of tip bearing. Roxbury is reported to be partially tip bearing but it has done fine for me in a constrained setting and has plenty of spurry growths. Actually one possible problem I have with it is that it does not seem inclined to make new shoots off the main rungs, so I feel like it is short of leaves. All the old shoots have turned into spurs and they make many apples but not many leaves.
My main problem with Roxbury is that the damn squirrels eat or ruin all the apples, just like on my other trees!
I feel like Roxbury at its best is every bit as good as GR, but most of the time GR is a little better.
2 Likes
Thank you for correcting my memory on that, Holly. I have a couple of trees of Roxbury Russet in my Belgian fence, so it’s good to hear your report - mine have been too young to bear fruit yet, but I’m optimistic that my squirrels will be as well fed as yours before too long.
Actually, now that I think of it, I also have Wheeler’s Golden Russet, which may be a sport of Golden Russet, and it did have a few flowers last year, but not really enough to conclude much about how tip-bearing it may or may not be. (My sense is that it may work in a Belgian fence but probably wouldn’t in a double U.)
It does seem like it would be possible to have decent success training a fairly tip-bearing variety in one of the looser espalier forms. Maybe like an arcure lepage, where you build the tiers by bending the tree over to encourage a bud at the top of the arc, which you then bend back in the other direction the following year? That’s something that could be cool and might work with a more vigorous, somewhat more tip-bearing tree. (Not that I’ve ever tried it, mind you…)
1 Like
I’m sure it is possible, if you can work some constant renewal branch system in like I’ve read you have to do with various stone fruits. Like if you set up two permanent horizontal rungs and let verticals pop up from it. When they get too long, you chop the whole thing off so that younger shoots are favored. Still, I have not heard of people doing apples this way.
2 Likes
Hmmm, Golden Russet a tip bearer? Not like Yellow transparent. I just went out and looked at an old long branch of Golden Russet I grafted on another tree. There are blossoms on tips, but the tips of very short, (2-3") unpruned spurs, which suggests it likes to put fruit on short weak pieces of wood that should make it fine for training as an espalier. Tip bearers that might cause problems are ones that flower at the end of vigorous pencils over a foot from the scaffold as does the above mentioned YT.
What worries me is that Golden Russet is a relatively vigorous variety and not a very cooperative one with a mind of it’s own, stubbornly resistant to the designs of the pruner. You should probably try to find something on a rootstock with similar vigor of M26 and your project will be sooooo much easier.
When you try to confine a very vigorous rootstock combined with a vigorous scion you sometimes mostly succeed at growing leaves and wood.
2 Likes
Good to know, @alan! Your method for managing fruiting on “pencils” also seems relevant here.
Here’s one interesting example of this:
http://www.prieuredorsan.com/journal/jardinier/2012/01/09/boucles-dor/
My French is pretty rusty, but as you can see in the photos, they continued to train out the laterals in curlicues that are incorporated into the espalier (also, an example of the arcure lepage form). It seems like it would get to be kind of a tangle, but I suppose you could just prune out whatever you wanted to.
1 Like
Like Alan said, Golden Russet is not quite tip bearer. It may be about 66% tip bearing.
@JinMA , some of the varieties you mentioned, Roxbury Russet and Bell de Boskoop and Blenheim Orange are all triploid. Hopefully Nicole will choose enough diploid varieties to help them out.
1 Like
Looks like the espalier version of the French Axe. I’m sure the trick would be to just see where the flower buds are the following season and reduce crowding while placing the flower buds where you want them.
Festooning or pulling growth down always encourages flower buds and reduces vigor. It probably is related to hormones- it was brought up recently but I have never read a scholarly explanation.
Another way to reduce growth and encourage fruiting is root restriction or even pruning. The potted trees in my nursery always start fruiting young. They are 2"- 2.5" diameter trees in 25 gallon pots that started off in 18" knitted Whitcomb in-ground bags so are soil surrounded by potting mix in the pots. Amazing how well that works for apples and pears. I let the roots grow out of the pots into soil so they don’t need a lot of irrigation (last couple of wet seasons, almost none) and when they start to grow vigorously I lift the pots up and cut back the roots in the soil or ring them close to the pots.
They end up with nice crops of apples on them, even vegetative types on 111 rootstock. If they’d been planted straight from the bags into a field it would take much longer for them to fruit on much larger trees.
2 Likes
That is a beautiful looking graft. I am jealous!
1 Like