I have been considering growing plums on their on roots and eliminate grafting. This year I added three air layers to my Au Cherry plum. Without any help from me after setting them up one rooted and it is now potted and looks healthy. Has anyone else tried this?
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I have a number of Plum seedlings,that are getting bigger and some may fruit next year.
That’s interesting about air layering one though.
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That sounds like a great idea with all the disease issues you guys have down there. I assume that could be more DR than most of the plum rootstocks.
Here i want things on their own roots so if they die to the ground in some snap freeze they will grow back
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Only thing I will add is that the clone my prune plum is from has been slow to bear on its own roots. I don’t know anything about any other plums.
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interesting case study. How long have you had your prune plum on its own roots and how tall is it? I hope you keep everyone here posted on its progress. Or lack thereof… Have to say it is a most intriguing thesis, all by itself!
we have been cloning cultivars of a considerably longer-lived cousin of plums – jujube, now growing on their own roots and wondering if clones revert to their true clonal age/exhibit senescence in the absence of youthful hormones provided by seedling rootstock.
several yrs ago cloned the cultivar honey jar but it was runty the entire time then died around 3 years of age. Recently just cloned two juju cultivars that were supposedly grown from seed here in usa back in 1960’s and one that is way more ancient, having been imported as budwood from china in early 1900’s. Really curious as to how they will perform on their own roots
plums/peaches/nectarines have a discernible trajectory of vigor and productivity when grafted to seedling rootstock, which invariably decline within a human’s lifetime.
in the absence of diseases/pests, a grafted peach tree will ultimately decline in output after several years of peak production. While it may not necessarily die, it will senesce and decrease fruit production, until the tree won’t even fruit anymore…
the only way of getting the cultivar to fruit again is to get a scion and graft onto another seedling. Makes me wonder if your self-rooted prune plum cultivar has reverted to its ‘true age’, thus now performing like it would as if it was grafted to a really old rootstock–which, in your case study, is its own roots…
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I don’t think the age of the tree matters if the cutting was taken from wood grown in the last year. Older trees are often weakened by pathogens, but you could propagate them by tissue culture like EMLA 26 rootstock. Many clonal rootstocks are older than the newer apple varieties that are grafted to them. These would have no ‘youthful hormones’. I would expect most cloned plums to bear fruit at the approximate size/age of a seedling plum.
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i agree that is possible. My curiosity is piqued however by the scenario i just brought up. An old peach tree has an old scion grafted to a younger rootstock. It will no longer be fruitful at some point. But if you take scion wood from it and graft to seedling rootstock, or perhaps tissue-cultured rootstock, it will behave like it is young again and follow a growth pattern of vigor, then peak production, then senescence. If the original scion was already infected, it shouldn’t be rejuvenated at all. Tissue culture actually involves use of various hormones, which you can’t replicate by obtaining suckers, say, from a 300 yr old suckering(but already declining) apple rootstock.
species that are relatively short-lived(relative to humans, such as avocados) actually need to be grafted to seedlings, sometimes serially, to load it with yet unknown to science of ‘youthful hormones’, before they will respond with growth and meristem differentiation to available laboratory hormones for tissue culture, or even to air-layering. Old declining avocado scion wood need serial grafting to seedlings before one can sucessfully airlayer it.
i couldn’t find the reference for this but will post it as soon as find it.
All I can do is give you the rough history of my prune as I recall it. About 25 years ago a coworker gave me a sucker from plums she had on her property, and I threw them in the trunk of my car and forgot about them for two weeks or so. Then when I looked closer I saw there were two suckers, so I discarded one and planted the other. A few years later it bore fruit and was about 8 feet tall when it had to be lifted from its spot to make way for sewer work. It was replaced but had been split in the process, and eventually it died. But, new growth popped up from the roots, and eleven years ago I took wood from one of those and grafted it to a nanking cherry rootstock and planted that. I also took one of the suckers and planted it in a different location.
Nine years later the two of them both started fruiting a little, and then last year and this year they produced good crops.
The grafted tree is just a bush of about six feet tall, and the one on its own roots is pushing ten feet, but in the last year or so I’ve begun pruning them a little to keep their size where it is.
This fall I tried placing a few apricot buds on the bigger one, and we’ll see how that does next year.
Tip of the day: Start this fruit tree interest when you’re young because it takes a long time to see how things are going to work out!
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Your self rooted plum clone is quite long lived, considering its provenance. Makes me wonder the age of the mother tree at the time your friend gave you the sucker clone
Cerasifera plums(supposed parent of many plums)can attain 50+ years, so my request is to update us on your hardy clone for a few more decades… pretty please? 
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Found one of the references was talking about. Tissue-culture hormones we have in horti-laboratories are themselves rejuvenating hormones, but we evidently havent identified other youthful hormones that seedlings produce, so still have to graft old scion clones to seedlings first (sometimes serially)before iba/naa hormones start working on airlayers
http://www.hort.cornell.edu/grafting/reasons/ReasonsGBLeft.html
And here is the avocado rejuvenation was referring to. It borders on incredible, if not magical, but it sure points to clonal age(or senescence)being influenced immensely by age of roots
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252516642_Possible_Rejuvenation_of_Adult_Avocado_by_Graftage_onto_Juvenile_Rootstocks_in_Vitro
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A bit of a hack on the question but What about the roostocks themselves? I have had awful results grafting. So I have alot of prunus America and marianna - I’ve heard that the PA is ok but what about the marianna. Maybe I’ll try to top work.
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Prunus America seedlings have a wide range of taste and quality. I grew up eating them and they were good to me as they start to ripen but I think most people would think they were tart at least until they a fully ripe. I have no first hand experience with Marianna but I have seen reporting of it being a very good plum.
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