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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2012 12:23:05 GMT -5
pH is considered vital, but this can be tested.
Informally speaking, washes and floodplains may accumulate minerals. Pale and hard sediments might be more alkaline.
Rich accumulations of organic material are usually assumed to be acidic.
As someone brought this up, my soil is not especially alkaline. We sit on an alluvial fan (of debris, from a slowly disintegrating moutainside.) Firm, redder clay becomes chocolate colored from organic material, and sand blows in from adjacent deserts.
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Post by MikeH on Nov 13, 2012 9:50:24 GMT -5
I research what makes the best root stock, but this appears to be a tightly controlled, even patented, trade secret. I'm not sure if that's it or the fact that most nurseries buy in their stock from a wholesaler and simply don't know. I agree. Even if you don't know the particular rootstock you have, you can still propagate it from a root cutting or by planting it with the graft union underground so that it produces rooted suckers. You transform grafted trees onto their own roots by trench layering them. I've heard it said that trees on their own roots are hardier because they don't have the potential incompatibility inherent in a graft. Grafted trees result mainly from the commercial need to pack more trees into less acreage by using dwarfing the variety. Nonetheless, one still needs rootstock to receive scionwood if only as an intermediate step. Once the scionwood takes, the tree can be trench layered to get it on its own root. |
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Post by Drahkk on Nov 13, 2012 18:09:32 GMT -5
I'm not sure if that's it or the fact that most nurseries buy in their stock from a wholesaler and simply don't know. You hit the nail square on the head. Last spring I was supervising the garden center at my store, and the only info we had on the fruit trees we sold was what the printed labels could tell (not much). And in early spring when we managers were sent to the spring roadshow to meet with all our vendors, the representative from the wholesaler we got them from just wanted to expound upon how neat it was that you could graft different fruits onto the same tree. She looked at me like I was from another planet when I told her you could graft almonds onto peaches. The only people who really know exactly which scions are being attached to which rootstock are the people who are doing the grafting, and the trees are being resold at least twice before reaching the final consumer. I've rooted cuttings and started trees from seed, but I'm just learning to graft, so I'm soaking up this thread with much interest. The Home Orchard Society offers some good insight, including their list of compatible rootstocks here: www.homeorchardsociety.org/article/41/ (Scroll to the bottom) MB |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2012 13:08:41 GMT -5
I acknowledge that nurserymen tend to be resalers, buying and selling, more than anything,
But, I mean to say that I had actually done reading on the subject of rootstocks. These fall into territory of intellectual property and copyrights. If you have a unique sport or scion, this is noteworthy, and your work deserves special credit.
As for what is hardier, grafted or non-grafted plants, there are examples of slow-growing cacti, grafted onto fast growing ones. They balloon, look like lolipops on a stick.
I have personal prejudices against tampering with nature, but, to be perfectly fair, I believe the issue is whether the rootstock is best suited for your particular condition.
Local fruit orchards were grafted onto elm, which was initially surprising to me, because this was an unrelated specie. Elm seemed susceptible to disease, where it is moist, and is not usually found in the desert, except maybe in ravines. I question whether the problem is with any grafting, or if the rootstock is hardy.
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Post by MikeH on Nov 14, 2012 17:03:40 GMT -5
But, I mean to say that I had actually done reading on the subject of rootstocks. These fall into territory of intellectual property and copyrights. If you have a unique sport or scion, this is noteworthy, and your work deserves special credit. Some do and some don't. The Geneva series of apple rootstocks is patented. The original Malling series isn't. EMLA27 is patented. I'm not sure about the rest of the East Malling/Long Ashton series. I'm also not sure about the Malling-Merton series. I suspect not since the crossing was done in the 1920s. There's tampering and there's tampering. Breeding via selective cross pollination is arguably more tampering than grafting but I don't have a problem with it or grafting. Transgenic mutation is something else again. I hadn't heard about elm as a rootstock but I know that hawthorne can host a number of different species more or less successfully - medlar, apple, pear, quince. |
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Post by MikeH on Jan 10, 2013 6:22:35 GMT -5
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Post by logrus9 on Jan 10, 2013 8:02:27 GMT -5
Thank you that was a great explanation. My uncle has an old apple tree that's in horrible shape because it's been growing wild for decades. It might be good for root stock since it's survived everything Mother nature has thrown at it. It's not a dwarf but if I graft onto the lower branches I don't think it will matter. If I'm wrong please let me know.
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Post by prairiegarden on Dec 7, 2015 17:32:38 GMT -5
Does anyone know anyone on Vancouver Island that could take cuttings from some very old apple trees there? I thought we had someone lined up but he appears to have vanished.
There's a certain urgency as the trees are probably on their last legs now... they are likely close to 100 years old, they most certainly are over 80 years old and the apples are beginning to have issues for the first time ever. I remember only ONCE anyone doing anything whatever about them..cutting out and burning some branches of a couple of trees that got tent caterpillers..most were not affected at all.
They had heavy production every year of big ..many almost softball size..crisp tangy apples that made the best apple pie ever and kept without fuss for months. One tree even got split in half by lightning and both halves, lying in different angles on the ground, kept on producing apples until it got cut up for firewood a couple of years later. They ripened late September.
The standard trees may be harder to pick, but what can compare to a tree you plant once and once it starts to bear, continues for 80+ years without any care? I will be very very sad if this variety, whatever it is, vanishes forever. They're on my brother's place, and I'm over a thousand miles away or I'd have been trying to do this for the past 15 years.
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Post by reed on Dec 7, 2015 20:40:03 GMT -5
Could you encourage your brother to track down some local nurseries and see if someone might be interested? Or maybe get some root stock and have him mail you some cuttings. I don't know enough about it to guide you on how to do that but there a lot of smart, experienced people here on the forum that I bet could help.
How about getting some apples and planting the seeds? I understand they won't likely breed true but seed propagation would at least preserve some of the genetics.
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Post by prairiegarden on Dec 7, 2015 22:51:09 GMT -5
I am trying to do some of that from here.. unfortunately they are in something like zone 6 or 7 and I am in something like zone 3 so most apples struggle here at best unless specially selected for the cold long winter.. There is a place in Ontario that does grafting and is handling all sorts of heritage apples and a few others.. Siloam, who gave me the lead to someone who then referred me on to the guy who came out two years ago and was supposed to look after it all last year. I've lost the contact now.. The trees are so old now, I think they likely will need someone with a clue about what they are doing if things are going to succeed.
I am going to go west in the next month or so, maybe I will tell them to save the seeds from any apples they eat... how should they do that, do they have to be kept moist?
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Post by MikeH on Dec 8, 2015 19:00:31 GMT -5
Does anyone know anyone on Vancouver Island that could take cuttings from some very old apple trees there? I thought we had someone lined up but he appears to have vanished. There's a certain urgency as the trees are probably on their last legs now... they are likely close to 100 years old, they most certainly are over 80 years old and the apples are beginning to have issues for the first time ever. I remember only ONCE anyone doing anything whatever about them..cutting out and burning some branches of a couple of trees that got tent caterpillers..most were not affected at all. They had heavy production every year of big ..many almost softball size..crisp tangy apples that made the best apple pie ever and kept without fuss for months. One tree even got split in half by lightning and both halves, lying in different angles on the ground, kept on producing apples until it got cut up for firewood a couple of years later. They ripened late September. The standard trees may be harder to pick, but what can compare to a tree you plant once and once it starts to bear, continues for 80+ years without any care? I will be very very sad if this variety, whatever it is, vanishes forever. They're on my brother's place, and I'm over a thousand miles away or I'd have been trying to do this for the past 15 years. Maybe Harry Burton - www.appleluscious.com/You could also try Dan Jason - www.saltspringseeds.com/. I don't know if he's an apple guy but I do know that he preserves genetic diversity. He might know someone. |
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Post by prairiegarden on Dec 8, 2015 19:43:20 GMT -5
Thank you! Now an embarrassment of riches... I was following the suggestion of looking up nurseries to see if perhaps I had missed one .. different search engines sometimes have different links for some reason.. and ran across a different site on Saltspring Island that specializes in apple trees and has 300 varieties.. no idea why I didn't find them years ago when first researching this. Neither time did I find Harry Burton, have to fire the search engines  . Anyway, I emailed them this morning, hoping that they would do it, if not, I can now contact Harry Burton. One or the other of them surely will be able to solve our problem. Thank you all, really appreciate the help! |
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jocundi
gopher
Tinkering with fruits and veggies in Eastern Boreal Forest on Canadian Shield.
Posts: 28 
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Post by jocundi on Apr 19, 2016 16:01:18 GMT -5
I guess this is the right place to post this...
While I am reading on and off about propagating apples and with 3 grafts done so far, this morning while eating a store bought apple, I noticed that the seeds inside the apple were sprouting!
I planted them in some pots and watered. So excited!
Any suggestions on how to take care of them so they're a success?
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Post by raymondo on Apr 20, 2016 4:04:03 GMT -5
I've potted up a few apples from seed. They seem pretty easy going, bit of food, water when needed, and they take care of themselves. I threw out most as it was just an experiment but I've kept one going. I'll plant it out at the end of winter, then it's on its own.
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Post by copse on Apr 20, 2016 14:44:57 GMT -5
The SkillCult blog posts videos and also normal posts about growing apples from seed, all the way to grafting them, and cross pollinating to get the seeds in the first place. |
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. Anyway, I emailed them this morning, hoping that they would do it, if not, I can now contact Harry Burton. One or the other of them surely will be able to solve our problem. Thank you all, really appreciate the help!
