Rootstocks and Seedlings: Fall Field Notes

rootstock stoolbeds, one is b118 with the dark purple bark, and the other is ottawa3 . most of my rootstocks are seedlings, but stoolbeds are easy and convenient, they make a larger caliper shoot in the first year, the root system is smaller and more fibrous , you get the benefits of the clonal stock, some dwarfing, disease resistance, uniformity. you can start small, our ottawa3 bed started with 2 trees this spring. it made 4 good shoots, which I replanted, so now there's 6 stools and the 2 established ones should produce heavier next year. and so on. also doing this with ohxf87, though pear is more fickle.. with the upside that I was able to easily root some softwood, so if the grafts survive a zone 3 winter, might be lots of ohxf stocks in a couple years. btw ussurian does not root easily, I gave up on vegetative propagation with it, luckily we're flush with seeds. one day i'll have a renewable supply of hundred of pear stocks to graft, for this season it's fewer. if only i could buy them at some reasonable cost in canada.. americans have an under appreciated bounty of cheap rootstocks available to them that we do not up here.

ussurian pear started in large plug trays. They can be a bit tricky to grow in trays or beds so I've had better luck in the first year as a plug. some of these are large enough to graft next spring, though most I think should grow another year in the ground. i'm growing 20:1 apples just because of rootstock availability in Canada, for zone 3 pears. basically they need to be seedlings, and basically you need to grow them yourself. I'm going to try some varied trays and small beds next spring as well, since stooling ussurian didn't produce results . some ohxf87 is possible though it's more of a zone 4 stock.

amur grape seedlings. plugs, seed started this spring. most of the mass is in the roots, we did a few kinds of grape seedlings this year and they worked out, you get a small starter plant with a few buds on top that's ready to take off in the second year. I would plant these with plenty of mulch. amur grape , vitus amurensis is a wild grape that's very cold hardy. the more common species around here is riparia, the riverbank grape.

parkland apple grafted to saskatoon, second year. a few cultivars have had stand out growth on this unconventional apple rootstock, might need to replicate to know if it's a one off or better compatibility. one way to look at long term health is the graft union, which looks pretty good. trial ongoing.

siberian crabapple, with some random percentage of hybridization, fruit will be different sizes. the larger fruiting tree is just about completely scab resistant, collected more of those. this stand of 4 trees were planted in 2004, and I use the seed for rootstocks.

plugs. japanese walnut and nanking cherry. for a first year seedlings they trees seem to do well. Most of my stock is in small pots, these were just to see how they compare.

white mulberry, morus alba tatarica. these are 2-3 years old from seed, most went in the toot cellar but a couple of patches like this will stress test the cold hardiness. it’s a zone 3/4 borderline shrub, yet I saw a large one locally this summer and tried mulberry for the first time, proving mulberry can grow in manitoba and survive -40. hoping my seedlings are equally as tough. I’m out of seed now but can propagate these selections with softwood

some frosty paper birch plugs getting.. unplugged

apple stoolbed b118 harvest, 3rd year. made about 50 rootstocks 1/2" caliper and decent rooting #stoolbed

roots like carrots on these 2 yr old siberian crabapples. I had make 6-8 different beds this fall, 1-2 yrs old some raised some in ground, some local seed. lots of material for grafting in the spring, probably much more than I need but I really enjoy grafting. #rootstocks

b118 stoolbed grew well in it’s second year, 2-3 ft growth is as big as I want for a rootstock.

this small bed of boxelder was ready to lift, high density kept them small, but it was also the first year for this nursery bed and we’re continuing to make them deeper by adding composted manure and wood chips. Thinking they should be transplanted into a larger bed in rows to size up next year. This might be our approach with many tree seeds, first year in a small starter bed then spread out and heavily mulched in a large in ground bed for the second year. The are benefits to the small bed in the first season, still sorting this process out and trying variations.

here’s our larger Siberian crab apple rootstocks for spring grafting. these were direct seeded last year. #rootstock

I made a new blog post as a follow up to our wild rootstock grafting experiment. Also our site has a new design, and I’ve filled up the sections with most of the trees we’ll have available this winter. There’s a link in our profile to our site or you can type in oaksummitnursery.ca

apple rootstocks tucked in for next spring. these ones are about medium sized first year seedlings, anything smaller goes back in a bed for another year. Our two year old rootstocks hit about waist high, about as large as you want for bench grafting. Working on switching to stool beds this fall, then we should be able to grow larger more uniform rootstocks in one year. #rootstock #siberiancrabapple

new nursery beds were my fall project. Fifteen no till beds 3’ x 20’ ready for seeds. By next year these should be full of small trees. #backyardnursery #notill #notillgardening #organicgardening