So is it because they are tangled up then?
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Would it do any good to plant a rootstock for a year in an air pruning pot or bed to change the single taproot or non-fibrous condition (like rootstock I ordered from Cummins or similar place.)? Maybe after grafting? Before?
I wanted to grow seedlings. I also wanted to grow grafted trees and have them in the best conditions before planting in the field. In addition, I wanted grow cuttings like a fig tree with the best roots. Same with things like elderberry, caneberry types, vegetable seedlings, and so on.
Plus I’d never heard of it before 
and thought it might be useful or hype.
While tap rooty trees do benefit the most root problems are not limited to them. Air pruning techniques can avoid root circling which can be as damaging.
Jump at the next chance to do an autopsy on a bush that died 2~3 years after planting, good bet is that the roots killed it. Once you strip all the dirt out you may get to see fatter roots that circled the pot. as the years go by those roots continue to grow literally choking the tree even if other roots managed to go out into the soil. Sometimes you see two layers of circling roots; when the plant was left too long in a plug and then another orbit when the plant was moved to a larger pot to get it ready to sell.
Nurseries have to take a whole lot of shortcuts if they are going to survive. Those shortcuts are not the most conductive to optimal root health. Yes; your plans can benefit from air pruning, but it is not as critical because you can take better individual care of your plants and avoid problems before they even start.
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I should have clarified by saying stone fruit.
Not really… Rootstocks are young enough that you don’t get a tangle of roots. The biggest problems are market-size plants that were crammed into small pots; nurseries calculate overhead costs of plants by the square footage they utilize; keeping plants in so-called trade gallon pots means 4 plants per square foot. They can be made to look pretty, but their tangled roots end up killing them a few years later.
I haven’t seen a lot of root stocks but I have never seen one that was grown in a pot. They seem to be field grown as saplings and harvested dormant with pretty free root systems.
For personal just using large enough pots or bags can avoid a whole lot of the root crowding issues. Pair that with proper root pruning while dormant and you are golden. On the other hand the correct use of air pruning techniques can be less stressful on the tree. Basically it’s not something you (or your trees) can’t live without but it is not without lots of merits.
That guy in the video above has only seedlings. I don’t know if he’s getting benefits or not.
You don’t think growing hundreds of seedlings with superior root systems in two square feet of space impressive enough? How would you suggest he should do that volume?
Not from my perspective because I don’t know if it was required to have the air pruning bed to accomplish it. He has a set of videos detailing them. It’s not personal. I simply wanted to see if others concurred, a consensus. I found it interesting. I’ve seen other videos he has that were pretty useful as well like growing rootstock, stooling, mounds.
It makes sense, but that’s not the same as actual experience from lots of people. It sure sounds better than strangled plants and roots.
Your perspective doesn’t seem to be taking into account the parameters at hand. Heck “need” is a fuzzy thing; he doesn’t “need” an air pruning box to produce several hundred saplings with good root structure. But the second you threw the word “benefit” there, well now we can start quantifying things based on benefit.
Can you think of another way to produce that number of saplings in such a small footprint without the need to butcher the roots at the end, and in fact end up with a better root structure?
As I pointed out you may not really benefit if all you need is a few. For mass producing at his scale there are tons of benefits