Lidl Fruit

[Migueli]

As from 02/04 (Thurs) Lidl are stocking 4 types of Fruit trees: Apple, Pear, Plum and Cherry.
No idea of the varieties or the eventual tree heights,. Price: each are just short of 10 notes.

[Two_Sheds]

I'd want to know the rootstock (and eventual height) before I went planting anything, esp. apple.

[Gardenwitch]

Also if they need more than one to cross pollinate or are they self pollinaters?

[Migueli]

I suspect they will be the usual suspects: Stella, Conference, pippins et al. Some will be self-fertile, some not.
My guess is that they will be Dwarf or semi-Dwarf examples. All it states on their site is 2 year old trees. I think it will be a little unusual if they sold full blown trees. I'll find out soon enough. . .

[Welsh Wizard]

I wish they would give some more details, rootstock is such a basic piece of information, without knowing this one cannot make a sensible decision whether the tree is suitable...

[feefeelalabelle]

I wish they would give some more details, rootstock is such a basic piece of information, without knowing this one cannot make a sensible decision whether the tree is suitable...

hiya, any chance you can enlighten me with some basic information what is rootstock? please x

[Migueli]

Popped into Lidl today. They are indeed the usual suspects: Conferance, Cox, Jonagold, Stella, Victoria.
It does not tell you the rootstock but the symbols on the tags indicate an eventual height of 3 metres.
They all appeared fairly healthy (to my untrained eye) with nice young green shoots, all sold in small pots.
I bought 3 types to mark the start of my fruit growing career

[coachman]

Inflation !

If you can time your visit well, I have found that the quality seems fairly good, although, watch out for damaged branches.

And, no matter what, at least you can see what your buying.

Some well known retailers,(T+M) can't even deliver within the dorment season,(bare-root) as promised.

When they were on sale at Lidl, over the last couple of months, I'm sure they were only £4.99.

Who said inflation is dead.
Or maybe it's £5 for the pot

[FB.]

hiya, any chance you can enlighten me with some basic information what is rootstock? please x

Most fruit trees are made up from two separate trees, joined together just above ground level.
In old times, people planted pips, which they allowed to grow for a few years.
Then, they cut the whole top off a few inches above ground and grafted a twig from their favourite apple tree onto the baby tree stump.
Therefore, they had a "seedling" rootstock, with a Bramley (or whatever) tree growing from it.
Nowadays, specific rootstocks are used to graft apple trees onto. There is a wide range of rootstocks available that suit most sizes, shapes and soil conditions. Most rootstocks give some additional disease resistance to the variety grafted onto them. For example, the MM-prefixed rootstocks give the tree a good resistance to woolly apple aphid (WAA are a big headache for me, in a warm, dry part of the UK, so I use MM106 and MM111 on many of my apples).

An average variety in an average area might reach:

M27: extremely dwarf: 4ft
M9: dwarf: 6ft
M26: semi-dwarf: 8ft
MM106: semi-vigorous: 10ft
MM111: vigorous: 13ft
M25: very vigorous: 18ft

Trying to grow M27 in poor soil will be a failure, due to being too weak.
Trying to grow M25 in a pot will need lots of pruning and the tree will fight you so much that it will not produce much fruit.

The variety grafted onto the rootstock can also affect the final size; Bramley (a strong grower) will probably grow to twice the size of an Egremont Russet (a compact grower) on the same rootstock. Therefore, Bramley on M25 might reach 20-25ft, whereas Egremont Russet might only be about 10-12ft when mature.

[feefeelalabelle]

thanks F.B. kinda got it but its a bit confusing! basically they nicked the tops of trees and put them on roots what suited their needs ....yeh.....?

xxx