I googled it, quite a process. It did seem to start with a controlled cross and lots of seeds. The testing from that point forward was amazing to find the perfect rootstock. Makes my fifteen seedlings look pretty pathetic !
If Iâm reading this right. Bigdoug used apple seed for named fruit as his seedling rootstock.
All generalizations are false, but Iâm thinking that his grafted trees would become full sized if not pruned.
The fellow who first showed me how to graft used just this, to make his standard sized grafted trees.
I grow a long row of seedling apples. Some will be more susceptible to disease and some less. There will be short ones and tall ones. One thing I learned from growing them is that they all had some desirable characteristics I found to use them for. In the future I wonât graft them over until I allow them to fruit first. All of mine sucker around the base accept one. I love my seedling apple project because you never know what they will wind up. The best tasting apples I ever tried came from my row of seedlings. When you graft them there may be times when your scion wood out grows the trunk but usually thatâs not the case.
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Here is my Hudson golden gem on a seedling rootstock. It is very vigorous. I pulled the entire tree to the right all the way to horizontal last spring. This fall I pulled it clear to the left at horizontal. So far this spring it has slowed the vigor down. All of the vertical shoots from last summer are pointing down and the tree seems confused and canât decide if it should continue to push growth from last years sprouts or push new vertical growth from the topside of the trunk
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Some sucker, some donât. Most seedling roots make full sized trees. A lack of disease resistance might be the biggest concern as thereâs going to be much variation in that area from seedlings. Although seedlings of disease resistant trees should have better odds of producing disease resistant rootstocks.
That an old postâŚany updates?
Ha, yea I can give an update. After a couple years the tree was an absolute monster and it was clear that no amount of pruning would keep it to a manageable size. I tried anyway but after year 4 I gave it the axe.
Maybe you should have grafted naturally self-dwarfing varieties on the tree- like Goldrush and spur Ark Black. I manage hundreds of old apple trees on seedling rootstock and they produce as good and as much fruit in relative space as trees on M7, but take a bit longer to come into productivity. If you prune with the information I provide in my pruning guide, even vigorous varieties should be manageable on seedling rootstocks, as long as you give them at least 25â spacing. One trend with full sized trees Iâve noticed, is that they may be more reliably annual than size reducing root stocks.
Here, rootstock has very little to do with disease resistance on the freestanding trees I manage. Itâs a much bigger issue on full dwarfs.
The problem with more vigorous rootstocks is that they tend to require more pruning done with more skill, but that skill ainât exactly rocket science and can be achieved by any serious hobbyist.
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I have some full size apples that came with the property, and after years of trying to manage them itâs clear that I cannot. I thought if I could keep this one small it would be something I could properly take care of. In my mind I could keep this at 12â-15â size by just pruning a lot, and that didnât seem possible.
From my experience with the full size trees, I donât think itâs reasonable for a homeowner like me to properly care for them. How the hell do you spray a 25â tall tree if youâve just got a backpack sprayer? How could you ever properly thin such a huge tree? As you said pruning is manageable, but a huge job and no fun when youâre on top of a 10â wobbly ladder with a pruning saw. Picking is no fun either when youâre moving and climbing a ladder 100 times per tree.
Iâve learned my lesson and will be sticking with dwarf and semi-dwarf rootstocks from now on. Iâm growing fruit for fun, and full size trees arenât fun, theyâre WORK!
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I have 100 year old trees I manage at 15â in height. How do you do that- by cutting off the tree at a 15â height. For well established trees this may take a decade, or if they lack adequate vigor, may not be possible at all, but for young trees you are training, it is mostly a matter of pulling scaffolds to a more horizontal position.
If the Japanese can accomplish this in commercial scale with cherries on Mazzard, you can with apples on seedling.
Pruning, like anything else, is usually not much fun until you understand how to do it and itâs no harder to learn than surfing, IMO. Not as much fun as that, I admit, but a full sized apple tree at 20 years of age shouldnât require more than a couple hours of pruning annually if you arenât debating with yourself about every cut.
However, if you arenât interested in learning the finer points of pruning or simply find it to be a burden, certainly less vigorous rootstocks are for you. If you like planting a legacy that future generations can enjoy when it becomes among the most beautiful trees in a landscape and can produce bushels of fruit of many varieties, you might consider growing apples on seedling rootstocks. One tree can be like an entire home orchard bearing as much fruit as a family needs, including gift baskets to friends.
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Some trees I picked using a 16 foot ladder 40 years ago still exist here in my county.
They have been âbutcheredâ so that they are much more spread than tallâŚand the crop ainât half that it used to beâŚbut they do still produce. (Evidently enough theyâve not been replaced by more trellises and M9 trees!)