Rootstocks and Seedlings: Summer Field Notes

missouri giant, clove currant. Ribes odoratum. super tastey fruit, it's up there with crandall. this one is a new addition to our collection, and we'll start to propagate them next year. I might even collect some of the fruit to grow out a set of seedlings next summer.

wild saskatoons are ripening, earlier than them cultivar ones at our neighbours which were still green this week. next to these bushes I've grafted apples onto the top and those photos are in this set. it's kind of cool to consider the rootstock for those apples grows tastey purple berries.

northern white cedar, stratified in march and then plated in the greenhouse. last year I put them into small plug trays an this point and they were 2-3" trees by end of the season, one more year in larger plugs or pots and you could plant them out. conifers I've found, are easier if you just plan to give them two years to grow to get up to size.

blue spruce seedlings. hundreds? cold stratified for one month then planted into this pot in the greenhouse, here they're about 4-6 weeks from germinating. should you plant them like this, well you can if you're going to carefully pull them apart and plant then into pots or plug trays and baby them for a while to get over the transplant shock or stress, for sure keeping them in this pot isn't enough room so it's a method I use to just get the seed going and transplant when I have more room to spread out in the summer. spruce I find are tougher or more resilient about transplanting than pine, often spruce transplant with some root disturbance fine where the same treatment wouldn't work for pine, so I would suggest sowing right into the pots or plug trays with those. these guys, it's more than I need so I'll figure it out, often I do plugs then plant into pots or a bed for two years (p+2) and then they're big enough to go into the field.

red elderberry, stratified a couple of months. the small seedling elderberry leaves have a different shape than the mature compound ones.

haskaps, seedling from aurora. here the seed was stratified feb through march and then planted in the greenhouse in early april. just about ready to divide up into their own pots. The seedlings won't be exactly the same a aurora, which is a large fruiting very upright bush, but similar and they have the advantage that they'll all be able to cross pollinate.

jacob's ladder seedlings. this is the first year I've grown them, some will go into a bed or large pots where we can collect seed in the fall. this is sort of the plan with all the wild flowers, a project in progress to be fully self sufficient with as many of our seed lots as we can

tobacco seedlings, about ready to pot up. it's almost july and I started these late, but the plants are fast growing and I'm hopeful they have time to flower and set seed before frost in september. tobacco seeds are tiny, several would make up a sand grain. I surface sow them and keep watered, careful not to let them wash away. then divide them up into pots for a while, plant then into a bed when they've larger.

sea buckthorn seedlings, from seed I collected in the fall from a bush that was nearly thornless. I was kind of a treat just stripping the fruit off the small branches without finding the usual spines tipping every small branch. Usually when you collect sea buckthorn, it's just easier to prune some branches. The seedlings will have been pollinate by a male plant somewhere nearby so the thornless trait will likely show up in some but not all of the seedlings. Maybe I should take some cuttings..

wild tobacco, a smaller leaved plant that matures at just a couple ft tall. last year I grew them out in small pots, they seem to do well in containers. here they're ready to divide up into transplants, maybe a little overdue - when plants are crowded and get leggy a good approach after transplanting is to use small pots or a plug trays and put it right into full shade for a few days to reduce the stress and let them recover before going into the sun. more or less time depending on the weather.

mongolian spruce. all of the conifer seedlings are small and slow growing in the first year. I like to start them in pots, and at this stage carefully divide them up into plug trays or pots.

tobacco seedlings started about one month ago in the greenhouse. they're a fast grow annual, even in our short 3-4 month growing season in southern MB these will get up to size and flower, and you can collect the leaves to you know roll cigars if you're adventurous. I like to grow them for the bees and to keep up our seed stock, they're topped with an attractive cluster of long persisting flowers into the fall. I'll transplant them into pots soon and plant around the nursery where they'll get watered.

northline saskatoon seedlings. stratified for three months, jan through march and planted in the greenhouse early april. they're small tree seeds so giving them a month or two in pots like this to size up before transplanting can work well. while these aren't exactly the large fruiting northline cultivar, they're going to be very similar - and saskatoons are tricky to propagate from cuttings so I would recommend growing them from seed.

wild grapes, cold stratified from nov through march so about five months in the fridge in some damp vermiculite, planted in april. they're a good size to transplant now, I usually put 2-3 to a cell in our plug trays but singles are also ok. funny story I divided up any earlier batch in june and we actually got frost mid june here in southern MB and it took out most of those outside small tender grape seedlings. So my advice when you grow these is to make sure they have some frost protection the first spring. all grapes seem to see about five months of cold conditioning for the seeds to germinate, so if you're going to grow them from seed start them early in the fall. you can also plant outside into pots, and then generally the seedlings will have more frost tolerance than greenhouse transplants.

garrington choke cherries, a selection with larger fruit, vigorous growth and large loosely spaced clusters. in the fall they're alright to eat off the tree, the later they go in the season the higher the brix, and despite the name chokecherries when ripe can be mild with low astringency, I suspect the name is related to their high tannin content. I've grafted out a few cultivars, garrington among them but I think it may not be a cultivar - the pfra in Canada grew seedlings and distributed them, so I've found shelterbelt rows of garrington where each tree had slightly different fruit, even different shape like the oxheart chokecherry seed we collected last year with pointed football shape seeds, which are normal close to round, slightly oblong

apples fruiting on wild saskatoon rootstock. a selection of apples grafted about shoulder high onto established saskatoon/ serviceberry, up high above the deer browse line. at three years old, showing good graft compatibility and precocity. is this supposed to be possible? well.. good question. I seem to have stumbled across something that works, similar to how quince is a good rootstock for pear.

elderberry fruit, will be red or black by the fall. this is a seedling species unknown, but I'm watching out for selections of any black fruiting ones growing well in Manitoba. here we have amerian black elderberry (S. canadensis) - the usual suspects with a dozen cultivars, some of which may be zone 3 hardy in the right context. To date, I haven't got any to survive above the snow but I'm in an exposed low laying area with light soil. and then there's the reclusive rocky mountain elderberry (S. racemesa var melanocarpa) - a black "red" elderberry - would like to find some of that growing it may be our hardiest option

pears shooting up from these root cuttings. ussurian doesn't do this as much as siberian crabapple, but it does and would make for so e cool bonsai. last photo is a bundle of plugs from last fall, yes you can leave plugs in the shrink wrap and just water them, the trees don't know they aren't in a plug tray anymore. this actually works better than you would expect, I have couple bins of plugs still waiting to either go into the ground or into pots

ohxf87 pear rootstock, you can propagate from softwood. in fact it doesn't stool very well, pear doesn't have the same adventitious buds along the root crown like apple. what this means is, if you chop these off and expect shoots you can hill up like the way an apple stoolbed works, well it doesn't. but the softwood can root so it has some promise, pear roostocks have been in short supply at our nursery, growing out ussurian seedlings can be challenging, and slow. stooling so far no luck, and really all of the clonal stocks in Canada are both expensive, hard to source, and not cold hardy. ohxf87 can work if the graft is low, so we're going to try it. maybe some cotoneaster as well.

Theissen saskatoon seedlings. a large fruiting cultivar, and a larger tree than the wild ones. while the seedlings aren't exactly the same as the cultivar, they should be very similar. saskatoon/serviceberry is notoriously difficult to propagate clonally, you basically need to use tissue culture, or some crazy etiolation - like grow it in a pot in the dark for a few weeks then take cuttings. seedlings are easier.

a few z grafts, you can see how on the larger rootstock it helps heal over the cut faster than a graft just off to one size. the large one is an unnamed plug directly onto chokecherry, and the small ones are american wild plum interstems between chokecherry and black ice plum - a sandcherry hybrid I'm trying to root this summer, basically it's a cherry plum - and the other has alenja on top, which survived -40 so another interesting imported plum to grow,

nannyberry seedlings. tricky to grow because of the deep dormancy. these germinated after a short warm strat in early winter, and they seem to like to hold and stay dormant at this stage, I kept them in the fridge four months then planted in the greenhouse.

evans cherry seedlings. at the orchard where I collected these, there was a little variation between the evans trees, so it's possible they were seedlings, if that's true then I would expect these to have comparable large cherries. there's all sorts of interesting breeding history in the sour cherries we can grow on the prairies, evans was a chance seedling discovered, it grows into a small tree, while the bush cherries from u of sask have a long breeding history with complex hybridization, I think starting with prunus fruiticosa, a small bushy cherry.

mustang cherry plum, just about ripe I think the color would go a little more burgundy. this is usually just a rootstock, though the idea of growing out the seeds to evaluate for their rootstock potential has me interested.

wild plums, these ones are some mix of prunus nigra and americana. the leaves and fruit are in between. the seedlings will be good pollinators and rootstock.

potting up seedlings, natives like silver buffaloberry (Shepherdia argentea), wolf willow (Elaeagnus commutata), a collection of currants and gooseberries. experimenting with container nursery, most of the plants are in pots and plug trays for this year.. last year I would have them all in the ground, but I think for some species a pot works better.. and I can ship them in the fall, basically can't do that with bare root here on the Canadian prairies, when the leaves drop and it snows the next day. #backyardnursery

potting up a plum tree on a mustang rootstock. it just worked out for our growing space and late spring grafting that this year all the grafted plums are in pots. what's interesting is the fibrous root system of a cherry plum hybrid stock seems to grow well in a small pot, you can see the healthy white root hairs, no circling roots, not too densely filled, in my experience just the right time to pot up. if I tried this this apple the thicker roots would be all tangled. I'm new enough to nursery work that several methods are getting experimented with for just about everything, but one thing I've consistently found is methods that work for large growers aren't the only way that works, and small craft scale growers may benefit from these slightly more intensive and time consuming methods, you almost just have to try it and judge the results to know.

northern white cedar. I've been germinating conifers in pots like this, and then transplanting into plug trays. it saves on greenhouse space and time in the spring, and lets you carefully water and take care of the seed through the critical germination period. You can direct sow into a garden or nursery bed, and keep them there for at least a year before planting out in a yard or tree line, I tend to grow them for two or three years to get up to size. I've also rooted cedar from cuttings, it take some practice and I had low percentages but if you can setup the right conditions it's possible. Growing them from seed is much easier.

white mulberry, finally got to try them. also first hand got to see healthy Morus alba trees growing in southern Manitoba, not just in a sheltered micro climate, in an exposed location in an orchard. We’re in zone 3 here on the prairies, and by most accounts these aren’t hardy here in our -40 winters, but these trees are seedlings that prove otherwise.

debbie’s gold apricot on it’s own roots. manchurian apricot has some rooting potential, maybe also for rootstock. does anyone stoolbed them? seeds are easier for sure but always in short supply #apricot #propagation

hardwood sawdust for stoolbeds. my wood shop has this pile from the dust collectors, aged hardwood a mix of walnut, cedar, oak and all kinds of exotics. at the bottom it’s ten years old, but the high eastern res cedar content keeps it from completely composting. In the next video I’m topping up the new ussurian pear stoolbed, cut to the ground this spring, hoping we get rooted stocks this fall, nearby there are a couple other stoolbeds with siberian crabapple #stoolbed #stoolbeds #propagation #rootstocks

hawthorn grafted onto saskatoon. There’s an interesting overlap of graft compatibility in the Rosacea family between several genuses, pear and quince, saskatoon and aronia, hawthorn and apple, and I have to assume more if you find the right interstems. there are some cool combinations to be tried and make the most inteteresting trees, these ones if the grafts endure will have purple berries and also 2” thorns with clusters of red fruit. #grafting

rosa woodsii in full bloom. these spread with rhizomes and sometimes appear in my nursery beds so i’ve been potting up volunteers.

checking on field planted apples, this area had saturated soil this spring. so I made a hole near each one to keep an eye on it and provide some local drainage. still saturated 12” down. if it stays water logged through summer the plan is to dig more to create a mound and transplant into it. Ok and mulch and caging, this is a work in progress. I stopped at 25 trees because of the soil, not sure how siberian crabapple rootstocks will like it. Green ash, boxelder, sandbar willow, silver buffaloberry all around the site are fine with the wet clay.

help wanted to ID this plum rootstock, cuttings from root suckers. It’s zone 3 hardy, few options right? Americana, sand cherry, mustang are the 3 I know of. Looks the most like americana, suckers like it.. but it roots super easily which seems different. Myrobalan isn’t hardy here to -40, but maybe it is? Suggestions welcome, plant from a garden center no idea what nursery, tree is 4 yrs old with no winter kill.

making a new stoolbed and topping up our b118 one started last year. the sawdust is aged hardwood with a high percentage aromatic cedar and walnut #stoolbed #propagation

hilled our stool bed of b118 with cedar sawdust today. Seems about the right time of year. Why cedar? My woodworking shop makes a tone of it, there’s a mix of other hardwoods but the whole pile just smells like the cedar. This pile is aged a couple years and shows no sign of breaking down. Wondering how it will affect rooting. #stoolbed #appletrees #propagation

planting out a bed of mustang cherry rootstocks. These should be large enough to bud in July. Our reserves of scion wood for many cultivars have been grafted out around the orchard, one reason to have an orchard next to the nursery - a ready supply of scion wood. This is one immediate benefit of our wild rootstock experiment, even if there is delayed graft compatibility in a few years for some cultivars, this summer we’re successfully growing scion wood. #rootstock #cherryplum #mustangcherry #growingtrees #treenursery

malus baccata, Siberian crab apple. These trees wake up and flower weeks before domestic apples. The pink and white flowers are the same species and show the genetic variations, the pink tree has more reddish stems and leaves and the apples are a deep red with red flesh. the white one has small late hanging apples. Both of these trees are planted in 2004 and have never had a single branch injured from the cold. Both will be harvested for seed again this fall for our rootstocks. #crabapple

trying some succession in our nursery beds. we combined conifers in many of our beds with faster growing trees because they do well with some shade and need two years to grow before transplant. the River birch on the left will grow a couple of feet while the pine will be a few inches tall by the fall. The soil gets disturbed when we lift the birch but if it’s done when the pine are dormant they seem to recover. A third layer of succession - we’ve started planting peas and beans in the beds with slow growing trees to improve the soil and add some shade. In addition we have some seeds that need two seasons in the ground like Hawthorne to germinate, these beds will be annuals this year. Last year we used shade cloth on our transplants, so far this year it hasn’t been needed but the small conifers may need some shade in July/august. If the legumes get too big or when the crop is done we’ll cut them to the ground and mulch the beds with them. working to get the most out of our beds.

Mustang cherries for budding this fall. While around the orchard I like to experiment with rootstocks, the plum trees we’ll want to sell will be grafted on these. It’s a complex Prunus hybrid developed by a local nursery that has good compatibility with many prunus species and is fully cold hardy to zone 3. Our next choice after these would be P. americana or P. nigra I think, and I want to try those but it’s surprisingly difficult to get seeds. Feeling like a proper nursery when wholesale trees arrive on a palette.. #mustangcherry #rootstock

Siberian crabapple rootstock in one of our raised beds. We had a batch of seed that was sown late like July last year, so they’re just taking off now. This bed has a high density, they’ll grow but would get larger we we had them spaced.

Our zone 3 backyard nursery with the forest orchard behind it. slowly expanding it in all directions. #backyardnursery #growingtrees

Malus baccata for rootstocks

small white spruce sheltered by bark and budding out. Where you won’t be back to water in the bush, hide them on the north side of a log or stump to protect from desiccation #silvicultura #whitespruce