Fruit tree propagation - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Fruit tree
Fruit tree
A fruit tree is a tree which bears fruit that is consumed or used by people — all trees that are flowering plants produce fruit, which are the ripened ovaries of flowers containing one or more seeds. In horticultural usage, the term 'fruit tree' is limited to those that provide fruit for...

propagation is usually carried out through asexual reproduction

Asexual reproduction

Asexual reproduction is a mode of reproduction by which offspring arise from a single parent, and inherit the genes of that parent only, it is reproduction which does not involve meiosis, ploidy reduction, or fertilization. A more stringent definition is agamogenesis which is reproduction without...

by grafting

Grafting

Grafting is a horticultural technique whereby tissues from one plant are inserted into those of another so that the two sets of vascular tissues may join together. This vascular joining is called inosculation...

or budding the desired variety onto a suitable rootstock

Rootstock

A rootstock is a plant, and sometimes just the stump, which already has an established, healthy root system, used for grafting a cutting or budding from another plant. The tree part being grafted onto the rootstock is usually called the scion...

.

Perennial plant

Perennial plant

A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

s can be propagated either by sexual or vegetative means. Sexual reproduction

Sexual reproduction

Sexual reproduction is the creation of a new organism by combining the genetic material of two organisms. There are two main processes during sexual reproduction; they are: meiosis, involving the halving of the number of chromosomes; and fertilization, involving the fusion of two gametes and the...

begins when a male germ cell (pollen

Pollen

Pollen is a fine to coarse powder containing the microgametophytes of seed plants, which produce the male gametes . Pollen grains have a hard coat that protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement from the stamens to the pistil of flowering plants or from the male cone to the...

) from one flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

fertilises a female germ cell (ovule

Ovule

Ovule means "small egg". In seed plants, the ovule is the structure that gives rise to and contains the female reproductive cells. It consists of three parts: The integument forming its outer layer, the nucellus , and the megaspore-derived female gametophyte in its center...

, incipient seed) of the same species, initiating the development of a fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

containing seed

Seed

A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...

s. Each seed, when germinated, can grow to become a new specimen tree. However, the new tree inherits characteristics of both its parents, and it will not grow 'true' to the variety of either parent from which it came. That is, it will be a fresh individual with an unpredictable combination of characteristics of its own. Although this is desirable in terms of producing novel combinations from the richness of the gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

pool of the two parent plants (such sexual recombination is the source of new cultivars), only rarely will the resulting new fruit tree be directly useful or attractive to the tastes of humankind. Most new plants will have characteristics that lie somewhere between those of the two parents.

Therefore, from the orchard

Orchard

An orchard is an intentional planting of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit or nut-producing trees which are grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of large gardens, where they serve an aesthetic as well as a productive...

grower or gardener's point of view, it is preferable to propagate fruit cultivars vegetatively in order to ensure reliability. This involves taking a cutting (or scion) of wood

Wood

Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...

from a desirable parent tree which is then grown on to produce a new plant or 'clone

Vegetative reproduction

Vegetative reproduction is a form of asexual reproduction in plants. It is a process by which new individuals arise without production of seeds or spores...

' of the original. In effect this means that the original Bramley apple

Bramley (apple)

Malus domestica 'Bramley's Seedling' is a cultivar of apple which is usually eaten cooked due to its sourness...

tree, for example, was a successful variety grown from a pip, but that every Bramley since then has been propagated by taking cuttings of living matter from that tree, or one of its descendants.

Methods

The essentials of our present methods of propagating of fruit tree

Fruit tree

A fruit tree is a tree which bears fruit that is consumed or used by people — all trees that are flowering plants produce fruit, which are the ripened ovaries of flowers containing one or more seeds. In horticultural usage, the term 'fruit tree' is limited to those that provide fruit for...

s date from pre-Classical times. Grafting as a technique was first developed in China from where it was imported to Greece and Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. Classical authors wrote extensively about the technical skills of fruit cultivation, including grafting techniques and rootstock selection. The oldest surviving named varieties of fruits date from classical times.

The simplest method of propagating a tree asexually is rooting. A cutting (a piece of the parent plant) is cut and stuck into soil. Artificial rooting hormones are sometimes used to assure success. If the cutting does not die of desiccation

Desiccation

Desiccation is the state of extreme dryness, or the process of extreme drying. A desiccant is a hygroscopic substance that induces or sustains such a state in its local vicinity in a moderately sealed container.-Science:...

first, roots grow from the buried portion of the cutting to become a complete plant. Though this works well for some plants (such as fig

Ficus

Ficus is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes, and hemiepiphyte in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone. The Common Fig Ficus is a genus of...

s and olive

Olive

The olive , Olea europaea), is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea.Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the...

s), most fruit trees are unsuited to this method.

Root cuttings (pieces of root induced to grow a new trunk) are used with some kinds of plants. This method also is suitable only for some plants.

A refinement on rooting is layering
Layering
Layering is a means of plant propagation in which a portion of an aerial stem grows roots while still attached to the parent plant and then detaches as an independent plant. Layering has evolved as a common means of vegetative propagation of numerous species in natural environments...

. This is rooting a piece of a wood that is still attached to its parent and continues to receive nourishment from it. The new plant is severed only after it has successfully grown roots. Layering is the technique most used for propagation of clonal apple rootstocks.

The most common method of propagating fruit trees, suitable for nearly all species, is grafting
Grafting
Grafting is a horticultural technique whereby tissues from one plant are inserted into those of another so that the two sets of vascular tissues may join together. This vascular joining is called inosculation...

onto rootstocks. These are varieties selected for characteristics such as their vigour of growth, hardiness, soil tolerance, and compatibility with the desired variety that will form the aerial part of the plant (called the scion). For example, grape

Grape

A grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...

rootstocks descended from North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

n grapes allow Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an grapes to be grown in areas infested with Phylloxera
Phylloxera
Grape phylloxera ; originally described in France as Phylloxera vastatrix; equated to the previously described Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, Phylloxera vitifoliae; commonly just called phylloxera is a pest of commercial grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America...

, a soil-dwelling insect that attacks and kills European grapes when grown on their own roots. Grafting is the process of joining these two varieties, ensuring maximum contact between the cambium tissue

Biological tissue

Tissue is a cellular organizational level intermediate between cells and a complete organism. A tissue is an ensemble of cells, not necessarily identical, but from the same origin, that together carry out a specific function. These are called tissues because of their identical functioning...

(that is, the layer of growing plant material just below the bark

Bark

Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...

) of each so that they grow together successfully. Two of the most common grafting techniques are 'whip and tongue', carried out in spring as the sap rises, and 'budding', which is performed around the end of summer.

Bud grafting

Whip and Tongue grafting

Make a sloping cut in the rootstock
Rootstock
A rootstock is a plant, and sometimes just the stump, which already has an established, healthy root system, used for grafting a cutting or budding from another plant. The tree part being grafted onto the rootstock is usually called the scion...

with a 'tongue
Make a matching cut in the scion wood with a 'tongue' pointing downwards.
Join the two, ensuring maximum contact of the vascular cambium
Vascular cambium
The vascular cambium is a part of the morphology of plants. It consists of cells that are partly specialized, for the tissues that transport water solutions, but have not reached any of the final forms that occur in their branch of the specialization graph...

layers. Bind with raffia
Raffia palm
The Raffia palms are a genus of twenty species of palms native to tropical regions of Africa, especially Madagascar, with one species also occurring in Central and South America. They grow up to 16 m tall and are remarkable for their compound pinnate leaves, the longest in the plant kingdom;...

or polythene tape
Adhesive tape
Adhesive tape is one of many varieties of backing materials coated with an adhesive. Several types of adhesives can be used.-Types:Pressure sensitive tape...

or wound around with a 5mm wide strip of elastic band (this is particularly successful because it keeps pressure on the cambium layers to be joined and eventually falls away with out cutting into the bark as the tree grows) and seal with grafting wax
Wax
thumb|right|[[Cetyl palmitate]], a typical wax ester.Wax refers to a class of chemical compounds that are plastic near ambient temperatures. Characteristically, they melt above 45 °C to give a low viscosity liquid. Waxes are insoluble in water but soluble in organic, nonpolar solvents...

.

Apple Rootstocks

Another reason for grafting onto rootstock

Rootstock

s is that this enables the grower to determine the tree's eventual size. Apple tree size classes number one to ten in increasing height and breadth. A "1" is a dwarf which can be productive and as short as three(3) feet with proper pruning. A "10" is the standard sized tree with no dwarfing and will grow to twenty(20) or more feet tall and wide, dependent upon the variety chosen. In general the class range is (1) 10-20% of full size, (2) 20-30%, (3) 30-40% and so forth to size 10 which is 100% of full size.

Apple tree rootstocks are referred to by numbers prefixed by letters indicating the developer of the rootstock.
"Bud 118" A winter hardy early bearing replacement for MM 111 bred in the Soviet Union. Full sized tree unless allowed to bear young which will stunt its growth. Hardy to USDA zone 3.

"Bud 9" A winter- hardy, early- bearing replacement for M9 bred in the Soviet Union. Dwarf tree resistant to crown rot and less susceptible to drought than most other dwarfing stocks. Produces large fruit, is precocious and hardy to USDA zone 3.

"M" designates Malling series

Malling series

-History:Rootstocks used to control tree size have been used in apple for over 2,000 years. Dwarfing rootstocks were probably discovered by chance in Asia. Alexander the Great sent samples of dwarf apple trees back to his teacher, Aristotle in Greece...

developed stocks. East Malling Research is a pioneer in the development of dwarfing rootstocks. East Malling Research Station

East Malling Research Station

East Malling Research is a now private company located in East Malling, Kent in England.-History:A research station was established on the East Malling site in 1913 on the impetus of local fruit growers. The original buildings are still in use today...

in Kent, England collected clones of the Paradise stocks from France in 1912 from which 24 "M" were designated with no particular order to the rootstock characteristics other than where they were located in the garden at the time the numbers were assigned. In other words, M.2 is larger tree than M.9 while M.27 is smaller than M.26.

"MM" designates Malling-Merton stocks developed from joint breeding program by John Innes Institute, in Merton, England, & East Malling Research Station in the early 1950s. The "MM" series was developed primarily to provide resistance to Woolly Apple Aphid(Eriosomatinae) infestation.

"EMLA" designates East Malling / Long Ashton research stations who took the "M" stocks and developed virus free versions. E.g., EMLA 7 is M 7 with a guaranteed virus free stock. EMLA characteristics are often different from the parent "M" rootstock. Note that nearly all the apple rootstocks in the industry are now virus free.

"CG" or "G" designates Cornell-Geneva stocks which are those developed via the Cornell & USDA collaboration at the New York Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY. The "G" is the old designation. All newer stocks are "CG" followed by numbers that actually provide some information about the stock. As one might surmise, this is a huge improvement in the classical naming scheme which has no identification method at all.

M.27 Malling 27: A very dwarfing rootstock. Unless the central leader is supported, the tree will be very small. Often only used as an intermediate stem piece on MM.106 or MM.111. If handled and spaced properly, it can be a very productive stock for a vertical axe system. Trees can be grown three to four feet tall and produce about 45 fruit, roughly 2 pecks, depending on fruit cultivar.

M.9: Very dwarfing - Reaches a height of 8 to 10 ft (2.4 to 3 m), coming into fruit after 3–4 years, reaching full capacity of 50 to 65 lb (22.7 to 29.5 kg) after 5 to 6 years. It will grow under average soil conditions, but needs a good rich soil to thrive. A good choice where space is limited and fertility is high. Permanent staking is required, as is routine feeding and watering. Trees on this rootstock always require leader support. The rootstock is very susceptible to fire blight and can develop burr knots.

G.41 Geneva 41, released in 2005, produces trees the size of M.9. The rootstock was developed from a cross between M.27 and Robusta 5 made in 1975. Resistant to Crown|Collar|Root rot(Phytopthora) and fire blight.

M.26: Dwarfing - Similar to M9 in effect, although somewhat more vigorous and generally stronger, with a higher expected eventual yield of 65–75 lb (29.5–34 kg) and height of 8 to 10 ft (2.4 to 3 m). A good choice where soil quality is average and compact growth is required. Comes into fruit after 3–4 years, reaching full cropping capacity after 5 to 6 years. Staking needed for first five years of its life. It is susceptible to collar rot and fire blight and should not be planted in a wet site. Certain varieties when grafted onto this rootstock may exhibit signs of graft union incompatibility(i.e., the union breaks).

G.11 Geneva 11 is the second release of the Cornell breeding program similar in size to M.26(Class 4) but more productive. Has the advantage of being resistant to fire blight and crown rot as well as only rarely producing suckers or burr knots.

G.202 Geneva 202(CG 5202) is a semidwarfing rootstock that produces a tree in class 5 slightly larger than M.26(Size Class 4) and is more productive than M.26. It was developed from a cross of M.27(Size Class 1) and Robusta 5 to be fire blight and Phytopthora resistant as well as having resistance to woolly apple aphids. In a 9-year study with the scion cultivar of the "Liberty" apple, G.202 was about 50 percent smaller than M.7 but had much greater production efficiency.

M.7 Malling 7 rootstock produces a semidwarf tree of Class 6 that is freestanding in deep well drained soils but in rocky, steep, or shallow soils, it tends to lean. The rootstock may sucker profusely and is susceptible to collar rot(Phytopthora).

MM.106: Semi-dwarfing - Sometimes referred to as semi-vigorous, this is the most widely used of rootstocks. It is probably the best choice for the average garden under average conditions, being tolerant of a wide range of soils, and producing a tree with an eventual size of 14 to 18 ft (4.3 to 5.5 m). Trees on this stock begin producing fruit within three to four years, and yield 90 to 110 lb (40.8 to 49.9 kg) after some seven or eight years. MM106 is very suitable for use with weaker varieties that would produce under sized bushes with more dwarfing rootstocks. Can be trained as a half standard tree, but is rather too vigorous for cordons unless the soil is poor. Requires staking for the first five years or so of its life. Trees on MM.106 are highly susceptible to collar rot especially when planted in soils that remain wet(poor percolation).

M.111 : Vigorous - Not generally suitable for garden scale growing, being both too large and spreading (18-25'), and too slow to come into cropping. They are however suitable for growing as specimen standards in the large garden, or for producing medium sized bushes on poorer soils. Begins to fruit after six or seven years, reaching full capacity of 160 to 360 lb (72.6 to 163.3 kg) after eight to nine years. It is not winter hardy in US zone 3 unless you receive abundant snow cover. Bud 118 was developed in the Soviet Union to replace MM 111, Bud 118 is winter hardy in zone 3 and very precocious. (Early bearing). Planting depth of this rootstock is critical. The union should be no higher than 1 to 2 inches above the final soil line.

M.25: Very vigorous - Suitable for a grassed orchard, and to grow on as a full standard. Plant 20 ft (6.1 m) apart, makes a tree of 15 to 20 ft (4.6 to 6.1 m) or more height and spread, eventually yielding 200 to 400 lb (90.7 to 181.4 kg) per tree. This rootstock is primarily used in UK and is rarely seen in USA where M.111(size Class 8) is used for this size tree.

Seedling: Very vigorous trees produced on a rootstock grown from seed. There is greater variability than with the vegetatively propagated rootstocks. Apples used for production of seedling rootstocks include 'Dolgo' and 'Antonovka
Antonovka (apple)
Antonovka or Antonówka is a group of late-fall or early-winter apple cultivars with a strong acid flavor that have been popular in Russia as well as in Poland. The most popular Russian variety is Common Antonovka , from which other cultivars are derived...

', which are both extremely hardy and vigorous.

That is only a sample of some of the more important current apple rootstocks that are available. There are at least a hundred more that have been developed to either provide enhancement or prevent potential damage from one kind of pest or another.

The problem with growing fruit trees, especially apple trees, is that they are subject to many different types of damage from bacteria, fungi and insects. The general approach of the commercial industry has been to use as many chemicals as necessary to insure attractive and marketable fruit. The attitude, still prevalent, has been "Who cares? Nobody eats a tree!" but as environmental problems increase and the general public pushes for low or no-spray fruit, there has become a commercial need for fruit that does not require such intensive spray programs. This is being achieved, albeit slowly, by rootstocks and trees that are bred to have natural disease and pest resistance.

The Malling series and clones have been standard rootstocks for apples for many years and remain the standard "workhorses" for the commercial industry in the USA and the UK. However, since most of them are susceptible to disease some Malling rootstocks are being replaced by new breeds, including the Cornell-Geneva series. One of the newest rootstocks, only released commercially in 2004, is CG5202(G.202) which adds resistance to the woolly apple aphid(WAA) for the "CG" series of stocks which already has resistance to the major problems preventing quality production of apples utilizing organic control systems. Combined with highly resistant trees such as "Liberty" it is showing great potential.

That leads to another characteristic of rootstocks that is or can be bred into them: environmental adaptability. This may be tolerance to wet|dry soil conditions, acidity|alkalinity of soil or even hot|cold air temperature.

Rootstocks based on Siberian Crab apple are being used in colder areas for more cold tolerance.

The ability of rootstocks to modify or augment characteristics of fruit trees is limited and often disappointing in the final results. It takes ten years to get a full picture of the effects of any one rootstock so a rootstock that appears promising in the first five years of a trial may fail in the last five years. The Mark (apple) rootstock was such a stock and has now fallen mostly into disfavor. Another, the G.30, has proved to be an excellent stock for production but it was only after a number of years of trials that it was found to be somewhat incompatible with "Gala" apple(and possibly others) so that it is now recommended to be staked and wired.

To get a clear picture and push the industry forward, a consortium was founded and the so-called "NC-140" trials of rootstocks began. These test many pome rootstocks in many different sites across the USA and thereby provide growers, be they backyard or commercial, a clearer picture of what to expect when growing fruit trees on specific stock, in specific planting methods in their specific area of the USA. As one can imagine, this has the potential for a large economic benefit to both growers and consumers as well as going a long way to eliminating the need to spray pesticides as frequently as is currently required.

Pear Rootstocks

Pear

The pear is any of several tree species of genus Pyrus and also the name of the pomaceous fruit of these trees. Several species of pear are valued by humans for their edible fruit, but the fruit of other species is small, hard, and astringent....

s are usually grafted onto quince rootstocks, which produce small to medium sized trees. Some varieties however are not compatible with quince

Quince

The quince , or Cydonia oblonga, is the sole member of the genus Cydonia and native to warm-temperate southwest Asia in the Caucasus region...

, and these require double working. This means that a piece of pear graft-work compatible with both the quince rootstock and the pear variety is used as an intermediate between the two. If this is not done the pear and the rootstock could eventually separate at the graft. Varieties that require double working include 'Bristol Cross', 'Dr Jules Guyot', 'Doyenné d' été' and 'Williams Bon Chrétien'.

Quince C: Moderately vigorous- Makes a bush pear tree about 8 to 18 ft (2.4 to 5.5 m) tall, bearing fruit within four to eight years. Suitable for highly fertile soils and vigorous varieties, but not where conditions are poor. Used for bush, cordon and espalier growing. Old stocks of Quince C may be infected with a virus, so care should be taken to obtain certified virus free stock. If in doubt, use Quince A as there is not a great amount of difference in vigour between the two.

Quince A: Medium vigour- Slightly more vigorous than Quince C, this is the most common variety upon which pears are grafted. Bears fruit between four to eight years, making a tree of some 10 to 20 ft (3 to 6.1 m) in height and spread. Suitable for all forms of pear trees except standards.

Pear stock: Very vigorous- Pears grafted onto pear rootstocks make very large standard trees, not suitable for most gardens.

Cherries

Until the 1970s, cherries

Cherry

The cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy stone fruit. The cherry fruits of commerce are usually obtained from a limited number of species, including especially cultivars of the wild cherry, Prunus avium....

were grown of the vigorous Malling F12/1, Mazzard (Prunus avium), or Maheleb (P. maheleb) rootstocks, which required much space and time before cropping began, thus the growing of cherries was not a realistic option on a garden scale. The introduction of the rootstock 'Colt' enables trees reaching a maximum height of 12 to 15 ft (3.7 to 4.6 m) to be grown, and if trained as a pyramid it is possible to restrict growth to about 10 ft (3 m). The popular sweet variety 'Stella' could even be grafted onto a 'Colt' rootstock and successfully grown in a pot on the patio. A newer rootstock, Gisela 5, is slowly becoming available to gardeners and produces a tree smaller still than Colt making netting for bird protection much easier.

Plums

Plum

A plum or gage is a stone fruit tree in the genus Prunus, subgenus Prunus. The subgenus is distinguished from other subgenera in the shoots having a terminal bud and solitary side buds , the flowers in groups of one to five together on short stems, and the fruit having a groove running down one...

rootstocks include;

Pixy - A dwarfing rootstock, suitable for bush trees planted 8 to 10 ft (2.4 to 3 m) apart.

St. Julien A - A semi vigorous rootstock suitable for bush and half standards planted 12 to 15 ft (3.7 to 4.6 m) apart. Also suitable for peach
Peach
The peach tree is a deciduous tree growing to tall and 6 in. in diameter, belonging to the subfamily Prunoideae of the family Rosaceae. It bears an edible juicy fruit called a peach...

es, nectarines and apricot
Apricot
The apricot, Prunus armeniaca, is a species of Prunus, classified with the plum in the subgenus Prunus. The native range is somewhat uncertain due to its extensive prehistoric cultivation.- Description :...

s.

Brompton or Myrobalan B- Suitable for half standards planted 18 to 22 ft (5.5 to 6.7 m) apart. Also suitable for peaches, nectarines and apricots.

Myro-29C - Semi-dwarf rootstock. Shallow, vigorous, good choice for hard soils. Somewhat drought tolerant.

Citation - Semi-dwarf rootstock. Shallow, vigorous, good choice for hard soils. Prefers a wetter soil.

Own-Root Fruit Trees

Many species of fruit are commonly grown on their own roots: fig

Ficus

, filbert

Filbert

Corylus maxima, the Filbert, is a species of hazel native to southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia, from the Balkans to Ordu in Turkey....

, olive

Olive

, pomegranate

Pomegranate

The pomegranate , Punica granatum, is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub or small tree growing between five and eight meters tall.Native to the area of modern day Iran, the pomegranate has been cultivated in the Caucasus since ancient times. From there it spread to Asian areas such as the Caucasus as...

, gooseberry

Gooseberry

The gooseberry or ; Ribes uva-crispa, syn. R. grossularia) is a species of Ribes, native to Europe, northwestern Africa and southwestern Asia...

, bramble

Bramble

Brambles are thorny plants of the genus Rubus, in the rose family . Bramble fruit is the fruit of any such plant, including the blackberry and raspberry. The word comes from Germanic *bram-bezi, whence also German Brombeere , Dutch Braam and French framboise...

as there may be no great advantages to using a special rootstock and/or rootstocks are not available.

However, there can be many advantages to growing fruit trees which are commonly grafted on their own rootstock instead. These advantages include better tree health; fruit that is more distinctive to the variety and of better quality (shape, size and flavor) and that lasts longer in storage; trees with better fruit set; trees with better self pollination. Trees grown on their own roots can be more easily transplanted. And importantly, they can be used in the traditional coppicing

Coppicing

Coppicing is a traditional method of woodland management which takes advantage of the fact that many trees make new growth from the stump or roots if cut down. In a coppiced wood, young tree stems are repeatedly cut down to near ground level...

systems advocated in both Sustainable agriculture

Sustainable agriculture

Sustainable agriculture is the practice of farming using principles of ecology, the study of relationships between organisms and their environment...

and Permaculture

Permaculture

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of modern agriculture...

. Disadvantages of using own root trees include excessive size, excessive production of wood (thus very long times until the start of fruit production), and a lack of research on the use of this technique in large scale systems. There are several techniques available to cause trees to start fruiting earlier including: withholding nitrogen and/or water (except in case of drought); training branches on the horizontal to induce budding, and limiting pruning to summer only.

External links

Apples from seeds FAQ
Apple --University of Georgia
New Apple Rootstocks On the Horizon (2003 report) --Michigan State University Extension
Apple Rootstock Fact Sheets --Cornell University / USDA-ARS Apple Rootstock Breeding and Evaluation Program
PERFORMANCE OF CORNELL-GENEVA ROOTSTOCKS ACROSS NORTH AMERICA IN MULTI-LOCATION NC-140 ROOTSTOCK TRIALS (abstract) --International Society for Horticultural Science(ISHS)
PYRODWARF, A NEW CLONAL ROOTSTOCK FOR HIGH DENSITY PEAR ORCHARDS (abstract) --International Society for Horticultural Science(ISHS)
Specific rootstocks(apple) --Pennsylvania Tree Fruit Production Guide
Pears --University of Georgia
Plums --University of Georgia
Rootstocks --DWN Dave Wilson Nursery
Dave Wilson Nursery
Dave Wilson Nursery is the largest wholesale grower of fruit trees for the home garden in the United States. A family-owned and -operated nursery established in 1938, it is now a corporation. It is one of the largest growers of deciduous fruit, nut and shade trees in the state, farming more than ...
Gene Yale's backyard with 176 Apple trees --(ABC) Interview, video and story
Tutorial: T-Bud and Chip Bud Fruit Tree Grafting Techniques --MidFEx

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