Questions about propagating from suckers

General Fruit Growing
1

I have a tree that we have recently I need as having a St Julian plum root stock. It puts up suckers which I enjoy grafting on to. Unfortunately I have a bunch of trees very close together now! I want to move them or give them away so I need a way to move them.

For the small ones (<3 ft tall, 1/4 trunks), I think I will just dig them up and move them. The problem is that since they are suckers they have essentially no root system of their own. Last night I tried root pruning, where I dug down and severed the root to the main tree then back filled with compost, rooting hormone and water. Unsurprisingly, the tree has low turgor this morning. Can I get some advice on improving this for next time? My goal is to let it grow roots until I move it mid fall, while the temperatures are cooler, but the ground still has a lot of warmth to it (I’m in a 7b/8a growing zone).I could also pot it and move it to my garage.

For the large ones whose trunks are 1/2-3/4 in and who are growing close to the parent tree (<2 ft) I think I’ll need to air layer. Is July too late to start air layering? Does anyone have additional instructions about air layering for stone fruit? I’ll be doing to air layering below the graft so I get the root stock. My knowledge of air layering is:

  1. Girdle through the cambiam.

  2. Wrap in peat moss and plastic, protect from drying out and sun light until roots grow.

Any additional advice or videos you suggest watching? I tried last year with just scraping through the bark,l with no success, too nervous to girdle the full sucker.

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2

My advice would be wait until they go dormant, or if you’re moving before they go dormant, the last week you’re there water them well and give them all a heavy pruning, maybe down to one leaf even. Then a couple days later dig up and cut the root transplant them, or cut them off the main root and hope they’ll have enough root hairs to take, you could even graft onto them in the spring before leafing out. That’s important, before leafing out.

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