Hi. This Spring I lost 11-13 fruit trees (cherry, apple, peach, plum- all about 2-4 years old and no more than an inch in diameter) to girdling by gophers. I don’t have the time to bridge graft all of these trees at the moment and not even sure that would work for some because they are quite small and or excessively girdled.
My question is: I have read several places that if you bury a tree above the rootstock then the scion will grow roots. Could I potentially rescue some of these trees by burying them above the rootstock and getting the scion to root? Has anyone tried this?
Thank you
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Welcome!
Yes this is the Hugh Ermen “Own Roots” technique. It clearly technically works. People the world over do it grafting a “Nurse root” then planting it deep later after the scion has taken and grown a few years. Not sure why. Some will swear it is a waste or will not work. But evidence is not on their side.
It is hardly perfect though.
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Yeah I’m one of those he think it’s BS. At least for many trees. Mulberries though will probably root. Every tree I ever planted deep has done poorly except for those that can root. I did it when I was ignorant about how to plant a tree properly.
Ermen was mostly known for his work with apple trees. He was a fan of own root trees. In academics he was about it. Research in own root trees ended when he died. At least at the university level. Many amateurs still are interested. It’s so easy to propagate by cloning that keeps it the way commercial growers do it.
Since you have little options you might get as well try it. Although it will cost you a year. My guess is all the stone fruit will die but other trees it may work?
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It works sometimes, for some trees. It’s seldom going to give you a helpful result. I don’t think it will help OP’s situation, though.
@samdibiase is the girdling above the graft? They might resprout
It is probably not for every type of growing. But there are in fact nicely manicured high production own root orchards.
But when you look at many of those hundreds of year old apple trees; most have no graft line.
Grafting by action forces the tree to accept the limits imposed on it by the root stock. Like short life on precocious dwarfing types. The pros and cons swing both ways.
It varies tree to tree. A few trees the girdling is below the graft and there is still rootstock with bark above the girdling. Others they girdled from the rootstock clear up to the scion at least 8" vertically. And one (or two) just has a girdled scion.
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And one apple tree is completely severed from its roots but is still putting out leaves. Would it be possible to make a clean cut and put rooting hormone on this tree or does that only work on smaller cuttings? It’s probably 5 ft tall and an inch in diameter.
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I’m not sure but if you try strip all the leaves off. They need water from roots. They will suck the sap dry. It takes about a week after girdling for all the leaves to die. Longer if tree is bigger. Strip off for a better chance of rooting.
Keep us updated. Grafting would be the best way. Can you also try grafting back on the rootstock? That may work but takes will be a low percentage as wood is not dormant. I have done it before. Well once anyway.
You might want to take smaller branches and try and root those too.
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Graft line disappears within 10 years. Grafting has been the dominant form of apple propagation for hundreds, if not thousands of years. The benefits of rootstocks outweigh the downsides.
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Oof, that’s rough. I agree, grafting is going to be your best bet. For any where only rootstock survives, let it grow out and regraft next year. You won’t listen that much time compared to if they hadn’t been girdled.
I find forum members to be generous sources of scion.
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Yeah if you name the cultivars I don’t grow apple though. If I have any you’re welcome to scion.
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Oh ok I might as well give that (grafting back onto the rootstock) a shot since they have zero chance of survival as is. Thanks.
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Thanks for the offer. I will have to come back and ask at a later date. I’m in the middle of building an addition on my house by myself at the moment and way behind on my self imposed deadlines. Meanwhile I was admiring my handsome fruit trees all winter until the snow melted and I realized the gophers robbed me from a third of them. Beyond that a couple weeks ago a herd of elk wandered through my yard and ate all the new growth off 80% of them. From now on I’ll be burying every tree in hardware cloth and I’m fencing out the elk.
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Yes. I guess the argument is they taste better on own roots. The downsides are it may take a year or two longer to fruit and tree will be massive. I’m sure every apple I ever ate was off a tree with a rootstock. Now I have grown my own peach seedlings and I didn’t notice any change in flavor whatsoever. Indian Free the seedlings look like the mother tree. Fruit looks the same although it does ripen at different times from the mother tree. Only difference I noticed.
although technically possible. Im not sure practically it will work.
If the tree is completely girdled when leafing out. It will probably not grow roots fast enough to sustain the evaporation of the leaves.
You will also loose the benefits of the rootstock. (does the planting distance still work for own rooted trees for example?)
Bridge grafting. Or even grafting a new rootstock to it (if you can still source some) is probably your best bet.
If your going that route. You could even heavily prune. Or de-leaf the trees to give them more time to get a functioning connection to the rootsystem before the leaves start to evaporate.
Trees can handle quite some de-leafing. They have plenty of stored energy/nutrients to grow back leaves a few times. If the stem dries out however. It’s dead.
The rootstock however could sprout again. And you can use that to regraft.
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I had a few partially girdled ussurian pears this spring. I dug them up, grafted them to other varieties, and planted them deep enough to cover the girdling (and protected them with hardware cloth). I fully expect them to do just fine in the future.
Actually that is a complete unknown. The fact is we have no blinkered idea what most trees do on their own roots. We can make guesses based on limited observation. There have just not been tests of all the varieties.
We can also cite size control. But there are many techniques that accomplish that too. As seen in Espalier.
Again; I’m not handing over my rootstock. In fact I hope to breed some. But jury is a long way off on “Own Roots” trees.
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I hope to add peach, nectarine, and pluot trees on their own roots. To me rootstock is just a cloning tool. Not a must do thing. I’m fooling around with breeding, although I’m not great at it so far. I lost my first 11 seedlings. I have three now third leaf.
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Anecdotally my favorite apple that i grow is own root. I have to prune heavily every yeat and often get good every other year fruiting. Small crop opposite years (virtually no blooms).
That could have more to do with chill hours storm timing etc than own root.
I habe grafted a couple branches onto my red delicious to see if theres a difference next year. For the fun of it i also rooted a cutting from my yellow delicious to see what would happen on own root (okay so two years and probably 25 cutting later i got one to root well). So we will see. I feel like with rooting compound burying might work if they dont dry out too fast. Plums and pluots are easier than peaches and nectarines - although i have a nectarine too that worked (out of a dozen) and a cherry out of many many attempts. The green gage plums root much easier but still a challenge. With all of these i girdled a small branch intentionally and then wrapped to air layer. Once callus formed potted up with rooting. Good luck to OP!
I’m switching to Clonex Gel next year to coat scarred scions next year.