Roots For Fruit Trees
Categories:
Fruit Growing
I wish to bud from certain trees that nurseries probably do not carry,
as they came from a seedling. Is there more than one variety of
myrobalan used, and if so, is one as good as another? If I take sprouts
that come up where the roots have been cut, will they make good trees? I
have tried a few, now three years old, and the trees are doing nicely so
far, but the roots sprout up where cut. I am informed that if I can
r
ise them from slips they will not sprout up from the root. Will
apricots and peaches grafted or budded on myrobalan produce fruit as
large as they will if grafted on their own stock?
Experience seems to be clear that from sprouts you will get sprouts. We
prefer rooted cuttings to sprouts, but even these are abandoned for
seedling roots of the common deciduous fruits and of citrus fruits also.
The apricot does well enough on the myrobalan if the soil needs that
root; they are usually larger on the peach root or on apricot seedlings.
The peach is no longer worked on the myrobalan in this State. One
seedling of the cherry plum is about as good a myrobalan as another.
What Will the Sucker Be?
I have a Japanese plum tree which bears choice plums. Three years ago a
strong young shoot came up from the root of it, which I dug out and
planted. Will it make a bearing tree in time and be of like quality with
the parent?
It will certainly bear something when it gets ready. Whether it will be
like the parent tree depends upon the wood from which the sucker broke
out. If the young tree was budded very low, or if it was planted low, or
if the ground has been shifted so as to bring the wood above the bud in
a place to root a sucker, the fruit will be that of the parent tree. If
the shoot came from the root below the bud, you will get a duplication
of whatever stock the plum was budded on in the nursery. It might be a
peach or an almond or a cherry plum. Of course you can study the foliage
and wood growth of the sucker, and thus get an idea of what you may
expect.