I’m not sure what I will do with air layer plums but I wanted to see how well they would root. I didn’t put much effort in the air layers. Just removed limbs and put medium in the container without any treatment. One of three has visible roots. Most all plums I have seen are sold on another type root. If they the Au Cheery tends to sucker I suppose I could have a thicket of plums.
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Bill, when will you cut the new tree from the old? I’ve got a Marianna rootstock I’m attempting to air layer now, and I wonder when I can take it. (Also I need to figure out where I’m going to put it!)
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I’m not sure when I will separate it. I think it could be removed whenever several roots are visible as long as it is potted and shaded for a week or two.
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Cool, I’ve always wanted to try this with the better tasting american hybrids like superior and toka since they often are grafted on prunus americana anyway.
I have toka on it’s own roots.
Removed the air layer August 20th and potted it up, left it in the shade then planted late October.
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I like own root plums. Less risk of losing the desired variety if it gets damaged (which is a major risk here). Some plums do form clonal thickets, but if you’re saying you have cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera) they won’t do that. They can become multi-trunk, but not spreading clonal thicket.
Edit: I just looked up ‘AU Cherry’ and see it’s a complex hybrid with only a minority of P. cerasifera from its ‘Methley’ parent.
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I don’t have the space but if I did I would like to have a thicket of higher quality plums.
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Spring Satin has done well at my location and I’m considering adding a few air layers to it.
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I’ve got a couple thicket forming types. They stay single trunked if you mow around them. When needed you can propagate them by root cuttings.
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Right now I have buds from an apricot on plum rootstock, and they seemed to be doing well last fall. I’m excited to see if I get any 'cots any time soon, or if it just dies. If I had a plum thicket I think I’d want to graft some of them over, if this were to work.
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I wanted to reveal my super secret, high tech method of rooting plums:
- Save your leftover scion from grafting just in case.
- Forget about it completely for 6 months.
- Clean out your scion collection, and notice there’s some pretty good callus going on there.
- Rinse off the mold, stick it in a jar of water and hope for the best.
- Happen to look at it a week later and notice you’ve got root initials and bud swell.
- Put it in a pot!
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Post like this tell me that although most Prunus are pretty hard to root as cuttings, many of them are not too difficult as air layers.
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I have President, Toka, Black Ruby and another variety on their own roots by airlayers.
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What variety is it? I have Hollywood on its own roots.
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This is Satsuma. I’m waiting to see if it actually roots or fizzles out. I definitely don’t need another plum, and I’m not looking forward to gracefully overwintering it, but how can you say no when you see callus like that?
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Mark,
As soon as the tree is dormant! Do it before any severe freezing weather so you can bury the new roots to protect from freezing.
Dennis
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This year I will be growing some Adara and Cherry plums rooted from cuttings that I will top work into multiple variety trees once their individual scaffolds are large enough to whip&tongue. I also am planting some peach seeds to attempt to grow peach rootstocks, upon which I will use either Adara or Cherry plum to create a multiple variety tree that can accept any stonefruit varieties. Since Adara and cherry plum are easier to graft than peach, but peach is actually a more vigorous rootstock I think the latter will perform better. So this is another advantage of rooting from cuttings or airlayering.
Dennis
Kent, wa
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