I noticed a few folks who sell scionwood for Apples. Peaches, Plums and Pears promoting the idea of rooting these trees rather than grafting. One vendor even includes a bunch of links to You Tube Videos. I have not watched the videos yet, but I plan to do it when time allows.
Several vendors on a popular Ecommerce site are promoting the idea of rooting fruit trees. Their scionwood looks pretty good and they are selling a bunch of it. . They also have almost perfect customer satisfaction scores which makes me wonder if rooting fruit trees really is an effective alternative.
Excluding Figs, is anybody successfully rooting fruit trees? This topic was mentioned in 2018 so Iām wondering if views have changed. If the experienced folks here can not successfully root fruit trees I doubt your average grower can do it either.
I think youāll find the bigger issue isnāt whether you can root from scion but whether you want to.
Most fruit trees are grafted onto different rootstock. This rootstock is used for soil conditions, disease resistance, precosity, tree size, etc.
Growing a tree on its own roots, in large part from what Iāve read here and elsewhere, at a minimum gives you a tree larger than you may want and a time to fruit potentially years later than by using rootstock. Disease issues are equally or more important still.
Those are all over e-bay. I think they just list every possible use for the sticks. If you look on here people are only doing the ones with proven success. I wouldnāt try using it for sales on anything but figs, mulberry, ect. When they fail itās you that some will be angry with. If the other fruits were easy there would be more on here doing it already.
Peaches, pears, and apples can root from cuttings, but do not do so easily. It would be fun to try and passively root cuttings from what you prune off of your trees in the spring, but not to spend a bunch of money on with little prospects for success.
I have rooted both apple and peach. It was like a 1 in 10 take ratio. It has to be a closed terminal end. I have never had one root that was cut on the end.
So not super reliable, but possible. Not so crazy if you have a truck load of prunings to stick 50 or so in a tray.
@DennisD gave me a plum he says roots easy for making rootstock from. Currently a projectā¦
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I think youāll find the bigger issue isnāt whether you can root from scion but whether you want to.
I believe you are exactly right about that!
At this point Iām really interested in just the success rate of the rooting activity, not the final outcome
It will take many years to determine the final outcome and customers could buy a lot of cuttings while they wait. If the scions fail to take root, customers are disappointed quickly and probably post a lot of bad reviews for the vendors promoting the rooting process rather than grafting.
Some work done in 1985 by the UGA on Peaches and published in a horticultural journal demonstrated some good rooting success with the proper methods and a positive final outcome. The abstract for the research looked interesting, but I canāt find any follow up research.
I doubt the same process would work on Apples, but I donāt see any university research on that. Just a bunch of You Tube Videos from folks who create revenue from their videos.
This part of the UGA research caught my attention:
Trees produced from rooted cuttings are more tolerant to drought, absorb and/or translocate more calcium than do scions on āLovellā, āHalfordā, āNemaguardā or āSiberian Cā rootstocks. Tree growth, cold tolerance, fruit production, and bacterial canker resistance do not differ between trees on their own roots and those on āLovellā rootstocks. Own rooted āJune Goldā peach trees bloomed later than āJune Goldā scions on āNemaguardā and āHalfordā rootstocks; however, there were no differencies in date of bloom of own rooted āRedhavenā and āRedhavenā on several rootstocks.
Here is the abstract from the UGA research in 1985
I have only succeeded in rooting Poncirus Trifoliata, flying dragon, US897, and Kuharske citrange. I grow peaches from seed and get my first fruits in 3 years. Meiwa kumquats produce well by 3rd year
Hereās a pic of an 1890ās apple tree that self rooted itās lower limb that burried itself into the soft valley soil, King of the Pippins
Pic of the fruit
I think UGAās paper is heavily slanted to the Commercial Grower only. I know millions of trees planted across the country came from seedlings or cuttings. Fruitland Nurseries alone is thought to have propagated and sold over 3 million peaches that way.
Here is the rub. All plants have innate and given vigor levels. These are a fantastic tip off to what size they will become. Some trees want to grow. Some {rootable by cutting} want to spread the genome easily. Some; especially big fruits tend to grow a small tree.
I put this all down to manās annoying mentality to have order and a perfect world on their terms. Except plants want it their way.
Do we really know what a fruit is supposed to taste like; if to be limited by what a rootstock wants to send it?
That said; I will graft some and dabble in some rooting attempts.
I have never tried it but a member here who has since passed had luck rooting air layers by girdling branch with wire and putting soil around it.
I have to try this sometime. Maybe next spring.
Iām not sure specifically about the platform you are referring to, but often there is a limited amount of time after a sale that a buyer can post feedback. Also, a lot of sellers follow up asking you to post feedback and usually post positive feedback to a buyer to get them to provide feedback as well.
So I wonder how many people fail to root the cuttings (often by no fault of their own) and either it is too late, they just donāt go back to review that much later or just feel they did something wrong. When you read the reviews, do many mention their success rooting cuttings or are they more along the lines of āfast shipping, well packed, look great. Thanks.ā?
I see people promoting āfresh cuttingsā etc. for things like persimmons as if they will root easier due to the quality, but we know the percentage of success for those species will be pretty dismal.
You ask good questions. Did not see any comments about how well the scionwood rooted, mostly comments about packing delivery or a free piece of wood. Iām not sure about the exact process for collecting the reviews but I see 620 five star (highest possible) for one vendor selling scion wood. Some vendors are selling peach scions for pretty high prices. I can buy peach trees on Guardian rootstock from a well known commercial nursery for less than twice the cost of the scionwood from some vendors.
Thanks for mentioning the nursery. I found a website with their name but I canāt read the black type against a dark blue background. I found another site that showed the price of their peach trees in the 1860ās. $35 for 100 trees.
The most interesting part of the UGA research was the idea of sticking the peach cutting direct in the ground in the final location without transplanting just like planting Elderberry cuttings which root easily.
First fruits from Peaches from seed in just 3 years sounds great It takes 3 years for me to get the first commercial peach crop but I brush off all the blooms in years 1 and 2.
I done one from a crab apple tree during Fall. I cut near the base. Add rooting hormone and trim nearly all the branches. Stuff the trunk into a 1" PVC pipe and into the ground. Later in Spring I remove it to plant a Gala apple instead. I can see it did grow roots and the tree have flowers.
I rooted a bald cypress tree. Of the big branches, 1 out of 4 survived in soil. The one in water never root out.
Able to root: nectarine, grape fruit, orange, mulberry tree (100 percent of the 4 sticks), Pom (easy), Fig (big stick, half dead rot in Winter), avocado (bad)
Well, one more anecdote: There are an apricot and a plum across the street from us, both well over the half century mark and still productive, and we were told by the owner that they planted them by just sticking cuttings in the ground and watering them.
There are two pretty big propagation groups on FBā¦ I dont think there is much that they dont or havent propagated on there. There are alot of folks worldwide that dont join forums or have youtube channelsā¦ but post on these groups. I have gotten some great ideas from there.
There are also āscientific papersā Here is proof that you can root pears from cuttings.
Im still learning myself and rooted alot of Rubus cuttings last year by just rubbing garlic on the cut and node. Whereas i have failed many times by doing things āby the bookā and using rooting hormoneā¦ i have also read that honey does the same thing.
Talking about pear cutting, I got one that work. I put it in a lysol swipe container and close the lid. After awhile, I opened the lid and never close it back. The leaves remain on the plants for several months. So, I know that it took. Itās now leafing out as Spring approach.
Tell me more about garlic as a rooting hormone. Have not seen that idea in any university research publications. I probably need to be more open to hands on research by normal folks.
