Fruit Trees - QD - Ipswich

[Sanjed]

Hi everyone.

QD are selling fairly decent looking fruit trees, apples, pears, cherries for £4.95 each..

I couldn't resist and bought 3 apples and a pear.

Golden Delicious
Cox's Orange Pippin
Elstar
Conference

[Two_Sheds]

do you know what rootstock the apples are grafted onto?

[Sanjed]

unfortunately not. the instructions are tpically vague and state that they can grow up to 8 metres but this depends on type and pruning - seems that the labels provided are all pretty generic.

fruit trees for amateurs rather than professionals i think.

damn.

[Two_Sheds]

the instructions are tpically vague and state that they can grow up to 8 metres

8m Tall and wide.
ah, that's what I feared. They'll be too big for my garden then.

[FB.]

The cheap apple trees are offered at bargain prices for one of several reasons, but it is not unusual for people not to get quite what they expected - either wrong rootstock and sometimes an apple tree is actually a pear tree.

If the size guide is 8 metres and they're telling the truth, you're probably grafted onto M25 rootstock, which is extremely vigorous. Grafted apple trees simply don't come any bigger than M25. They can also take ten years to give a decent crop and will not be easy to prune or care for. I suspect that the Cox will succumb to disease if it reaches such a size, since it will be difficult to prune out the cankers and mildew that are par for the course with Cox.
M25 is suitable for very poor soils where only the strongest can survive.
My eyes are watering just thinking about how big your trees might grow.
<gulp!>

Yes, I have several M25's because of my poor soil, but this is a rootstock strictly for special situations. Absolutely not suitable for the average garden or the allotment and it is irresponsible selling by the shop, if the trees really are on such a rootstock.

Of course, maybe the person who wrote out the labels didn't have a clue and just made a best guess. Perhaps they're really grafted onto the very common and versatile MM106 rootstock. Perhaps they're grafted on the "patio container" M27 rootstock that needs regular feeding and watering.

If you can take some decent pictures of the tree from the graft down to the roots and post them on here, I might (I said might) be able to take a guess (I said a guess) at the rootstock.