Growing fruit trees in Cambridgeshire soil

[BeatTheSeasons]

I have a Edward VII on MM106 that is several years old. I had been giving this tree special attention - trying to get it to become a half-standard for planting in a final position at a later time - but its progress is too slow for my liking.
It is about 7ft tall and 4ft wide, with several good side branches that start about 1m from the ground. The lower ones could easily be removed, to give a clear trunk of about 1.5m.
It is larger than anything that you'll get "mail order". It is also an attractive shape.

It is yours for free if you'd like it - I'll even deliver it to you (perhaps this weekend?) as you can't be more than 20 minutes from me.

Thanks FB, that's very generous of you. I'm not quite ready to plant my trees yet as I still have an old, rickety shed taking up much of the top, lawned area of my garden. I can't dismantle the shed until I put the new one up at the bottom end of my garden - unless I can persuade my other half to allow me to fill the house with lawnmowers, garden tools and everything else in the meantime!

Once the old shed is removed I will have a better idea of how many trees I can fit in - at the moment I am not sure if I will be able to have more than one bush plus some fans or espaliers. How far apart should I be planting bush form trees, bearing in mind that in my soil they are unlikely to get much over 2.5m to 3.0m?

[FB.]

I suggest allow about the same spacing as the height.
However, it is reasonably easy to train trees into more upright shapes, or more spreading shapes.


If you're wanting bushes of about 2m, you may well get MM106, Quince A and St.Julien A up to that size, as long as you keep them well-fed and well- watered for the first few years.

If you want "proper" trees with a 4-6ft trunk, you will need a stronger rootstock, although vigorous varieties will increase the rootstock vigour.

I suggest experiment with the tree size estimator and assume that your soil is either "below average" or "average". It is unlikely to be better than average in this area, due to low rainfall.

I often have spare apple trees (graft a few each season and grow a few seedlings), so I may well be able to let one of my spares go; you're not far away so I can drop one in when I'm passing.
I often have pieces of rootstock too - at present, I can usually spare an ungrafted rootstock, but they are only 1-2ft high and when grafted, they have to start again from the ground - reaching a typical height of 4ft in their first season.
I may well be able to supply scion wood to graft onto a piece of rootstock.

[BeatTheSeasons]

I've just acquired half a plot at Burnside allotments. I'm very lucky because over half of it has been covered in plastic for a couple of years so it isn't too overgrown.

When I took the plastic off and started digging, I found that the soil was like modelling clay - incredibly wet, heavy and sticky. I haven't yet dug down further than one spade's depth to see what it's like underneath. I'm planning on planting a couple of apple trees but was wondering what they will make of this kind of soil?

It's not really what I was expecting because I live less than a mile away and the soil in my garden is completely different.

[FB.]

I suggest run a pH test on your soil to confirm that you have clay (slightly acid). If you are on chalk the pH will be higher and what you can grow in terms of veg and fruit may be quite limited.
(I have shallow, dry, sandy-gravelly-chalky loam with a pH of about 7.5; very hostile and many plants won't even try to grow roots in such nasty soil).

In this area, the summers have very few days of penetrating rainfall and this is made worse by the relatively high amounts of warmth and sunshine which quickly dry the soil.
Worse still; soils which dry can become alkaline while soils which remain damp can become acid, so you may swing from alkaline in summer to acid in winter which may not please the plants.

You can see just how low-rainfall, warm and sunny were are here:

> Met Office<

(remember to click on both the upper and lower menu choices so as not to view the default of January)

.



I suggest avoid MM106 entirely due to susceptibility to root rots and substitute MM111 which is more resistant to root rots, but also has the same resistant to woolly aphid and is better able to cope with difficult conditions.
M26 would be my choice for a smaller tree, or where a vigorous variety needs to be kept compact.
If you can only find MM106, plant them on a small mound (say six inches high and two foot across) to keep water away from the base of the trunk if you are worried about flooding. Other rootstocks might also be happier on a mound in very heavy soil.

Due to the very low rainfall in this area, I would advise against mildew-prone varieties or against varieties with known nutritional imbalances such as bitter pit, or against varieties which are particularly prone to any particular disease because the tough conditions here will put them under stress. Stress may be so high that the challenge will be to keep them growing and preventing them from producing vast quantities of crabapple-sized fruits.

The dry conditions here can be crippling for mildew (killing much of the new growth and the fungus incorporates itself into the wood for the next season) and the imbalance of water can spoil the fruit quality or significantly shorten its storage life.

Get your trees on either M26 or MM111, depending on how big you want, but remember that trees in this area, with less rainfall, will be smaller than "the books" say unless the soil is unusually good - an allotment may be reasonably good. If you plan to water regularly then they will be normal size.

[BeatTheSeasons]

I'm just trying to decide whether to get a bush or half standard form of the tree for my back garden, which is longish but narrow. As this could end up being the only tree which we can sit underneath for some shade in the summer, I was thinking about half standard (as I'm guessing you can't really sit under a bush) but does anyone know if this could end up being too large? (assuming soil/rootstock/etc is all ok and it does actually have a bit of vigour).

[FB.]

BTS

A bush will probably come on MM106 rootstock which is likely to grow painfully slowly in our poor, dry, shallow and often chalky soil. MM106 requires a long period of moist soil (but not waterlogged) before it will start growing the large structural roots needed to power the trees growth by extending the root system coverage (which is crucial in low-rainfall regions with por soil; the root systems here are often 2x the mass of the above-ground part of the tree so the roots need to be very strong).
However MM106 can tolerate drought reasonably well because it readily produces tiny fibrous roots to absorb water.

If you want a half-standard, select MM111 and have a vigorous variety on it, or select M25 and have a medium or low-vigour variety on it.

Even so, if your soil is anything like mine, even those rootstocks will still take a long time to get to a decent size. The are some "full standard" "John Downie" crabs on M25 rootstock near to me which were planted 20 years ago and they have reached a spread of about 9ft pruned and 12ft if unpruned. Height is a little more than their spread because they have been grown with a 6ft trunk and therefore the canopy is lifted 3ft higher than it would be for a half-standard or bush.
There are a few 40+ year old Bramley's nearby on vigorous rootstocks (either seedling, wild crab, or M2 as a guess) and they have reached about 12ft if pruned and 15ft if unpruned.

If your soil is relatively shady, it tends to hold moisture much better and trees will be up to 50% larger because it is lack of rainfall, lack of water-holding capacity of the soil, mild temperatures and strong direct sunshine which makes the soil dry so quickly. Shade keeps the sun off the ground and keeps the ground cooler, so it doesn't dry nearly as quickly and therefore trees can continue growing for longer in spring.

If your soil is very prone to drying, be wary of bitter pit problems in vigorous, triploid or large-fruited varieties. Not all are prone but even those normlly considered "not prone" can suffer due to lack of water affecting nutrient uptake.

Additionally, due to hot, dry weather but humid air, you will struggle to keep mildew-prone varieties alive. Only varieties with some resistance should be considered. The more resistance to mildew the better because it is very serious disease here and "the books" are written by orchardists with deal soil and sprays and they have no idea of how damaging it is in some low-rainfall regions like ours.

.

MM111 rootstock tolerates drought best but should not be used for bitter-pit-prone varieties (often large fruit, triploid or very vigorous).
M25 doesn't like the droughts as much, so growth tends to be strong but "on-off-spurts" in this area; M25 grows rapidly in spring and after rainfall, but quickly stops growth as the soil dries. M25 seems to dramatically reduce the effect of bitter pit.

In our soil, if you are prepared to manage the tree properly (i.e. a couple of hour's attention each year) then you will have no "out of control" problems with MM111 or M25.
On the other hand, MM106 and smaller rootstocks will require intensive management to get them up to size unless planted with their roots in shade to retain moisture. In such conditions MM106 can then rival MM111 in size with better quality fruit and more fruit.

Bushes normally have their lowest branches at 2ft, half-standards at 3-4ft and standards at 5-7ft.

[FB.]

Note the comments (by myself and others) about the St.Julien A "medium vigour" plum rootstock which is considered to be the plum equivalent of MM106.
Note that "we" can only get the "medium vigour" St,Julien A/MM106/Quince A to about 5-6ft.

Link here:
http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ees_61730.html

.

Unless your soil is good quality or remains moist in summer, I strongly urge you not to fall into the same trap as I did, with the years of wasted time and money.
I worried that my original orchard of MM106 would get too large. In fact, they were actually far too small. I abandoned my MM106 orchard a few years ago and now have a MM111/T3 and M25/T2 orchard which is growing about the same rate as the MM106 was supposed to but never did. (T3 = vigorous varieties, T2= medium vigour varieties, T1= very low-vigour varieties).

It's all down to water - and we don't get enough of it; we get about half the "offical" ideal amount for apple growing and our soil doesn't hold what little rain we do get.

However, if you would like, I'll personally deliver - free of charge! - a Edward VII/MM106 which is several years old and would be suitable for training as H/STD or STD if the soil was adequate.
It is about 6-7ft tall and about 3-4ft wide, with several good scaffold branches which could easily be trimmed-off to convert it into either STD or HSTD.
I have given up on it because no matter what I do it grows just a few inches per year since I formed-up several main scaffold branches.
The soil here is nasty and MM106 just can't handle it; I wouldn't be offering a tree for free if I could make it grow!

[BeatTheSeasons]

Soil - see attached picture



I've investigated my allotment soil. Unfortunately the pH checker didn't work, and the contents of the plastic tube just went brown/grey (same colour as the soil).

I dug down a bit deeper to check out the soil and subsoil. The first spade depth (12 inches) was all clay. Then the next few inches were as in the attached picture - clay at the top but giving way to something lighter underneath. As you can see, it's all stayed together in one solid wet clump! (which the soil in my garden less than 1 mile away never does).

I would be delighted to accept your very kind offer of the Edward VII tree on MM106 - but do you think it will fare any better in this soil?

[FB.]

In our area, (lack of) penetrating rainfall is the biggest problem. We get plenty of light showers but they only dampen the top few millimetres and it quickly gets sun-dried or wind-dried.

Which part of Cambridge is your allotment and which part are you living in?
(no need for street names, but the area name such as "Chesterton near the river" or "Arbury near the A14" would be very helpful).


I think that a pH check would be a good idea.
That pale coloured, cracked bit at the bottom of your soil sample - especially the way it cracks even when wet - reminds me very much of chalk with traces of sand.
Cherryhinton (Coldham's Lane - now an industrial estate) was once well-known for its chalk pits and associated cement works (Blue Circle Cement, it you remember the blue and yellow logo). Fulbourn and "the Gogs" are basically big chalk hills.
It is also possible that it is clay and that our exceptionally low-rainfall summer means that the deep soil is clay which is still dry and cracked.

If you plan to pu the Edward VII/MM106 on an allotment which is reasonable soil with good manuring/mulching then it may grow to 3-4 metres eventually. However, I don't see it being an easy task to grow it on your average garden soil in this area because MM106 needs good moisture retention in the soil. This is not easy unless the roots are shaded to keep the ground cooler.

I think that the Edward VII/MM106 will be no more successful for you than it is for me (I live only a short distance up the A10, near the old sand/gravel quarries). My soil is about 1ft topsoil and sand/gravel beneath with traces of chalk and traces of clay. My pH is 7-7.5 due to the trace chalk and low-rainfall (soils with low rainfall are often alkaline), which is not easy for apples to grow on - especially without adequate moisture.

There are a number of reputed chalk-tolerant varieties, or varieties which grow well almost anywhere.
Some chalk-tolerant/raised pH-tolerant include:
Barnack Beauty
Barnack Orange
Charles Ross
Crawley Beauty
Gascoyne's Scarlet
Millers Seedling
St.Everard (from Papworth St.Everard - just a short drive to the West)

I've also found the following cope quite well, although there is no mention in old books about their suitability for chalk:
Belle de Boskoop
Bountiful
Bramley
Brownlees Russet
Court Pendu Plat
D'Arcy Spice
Edward VII
Ellison's Orange
Fiesta/Red Pippin
Norfolk Beefing
Tydeman's Late Orange

My preferred rootstock is MM111 for half-standards, but I also like M25 for half or full standards if you can find a supplier of trees which aren't carrying the lower-trunk-rotting "phytophthora" fungus.



.

[BeatTheSeasons]

I live off Mill Road. The soil picture is from my allotment at Burnside, right next to the water-filled ex chalk pits which lie between the eastern edge of the City and Cherry Hinton.

[FB.]

My genuine advice would be to go with strong roots to ensure that the tree can handle whatever nature throws at it; MM111 or M25.
If you are worried about tree size, have the rootstock grafted with a slow-growing or precocious variety. The roots will then be easily able to meet the demands of the slow-growing tree on top.
Just as rootstocks vary in their growth rate, so do the different fruiting varieties grow at different rates - but this is rarely mentioned in "the books" which are written by armchair orchardists. These "armchair orchardists" make it sound like all MM106 trees reach exactly the same size, regardless of soil, climate, or the variety grafted.

If you were to buy a M25-rootstocked "one-year maiden whip" of a D'Arcy Spice, you would be horrified at just how tiny it is and you'd think that you'd been short-changed; it'd be about 2ft tall and would take about two more years to even form-up a 4-5ft "half-standard" trunk, let alone have any decent side branches. If unpruned it would have formed side branches about 2ft from the ground and look more like a rose bush!
In the early years, a D'Arcy Spice/M25 would be about the same size as an average variety on a dwarfing rootstock such as M9.

On the other hand, an average variety "maiden" on M25 would be about 4-5ft in its first year - perhaps a little more if grown in a good nursery and in a good season.
A maiden MM111 would be just over three-quarters the size of the same variety on M25.

I suggest using the tree height estimator and inputting your soil as "below average" if you are considering M25 or MM111, but put it in as "poor" if you are considering MM106 (or dwarf) rootstock - to reflect MM106's intolerance of soil which is dry for prolonged periods.
You can scan the list of varieties for their vigour and get an idea of what kind of size to expect.

> Link here <

.

[FB.]

I live off Mill Road. The soil picture is from my allotment at Burnside, right next to the water-filled ex chalk pits which lie between the eastern edge of the City and Cherry Hinton.

The Perne Road end of Mill Road has a little cut-through which is the back of the old chalk pits. The track then goes over the railway line and comes out in CherryHinton High street.

However, if you're in a relatively built-up area, the long shadows cast by nearby buildings may help to keep your garden soil cooler and damper, so MM106 might be fine. I'd still go for something a little stronger though (MM111/M25). Also beware that long shadows may make it preferable to grow cookers/dual-purpose which don't need as much sun because they can be sweetened with sugar when cooked and often cookers will sweeten in storage.

[FB.]

Here's a picture (just one example of my fruit trees past and present) showing a ten-year old Laxton's Superb on MM106 which has long since ceased to try to grow and simply produces a medium quantity of small-medium fruit which is gradually causing the weak branches to droop to the ground. You can see that the poor thing's life now hangs by a piece of rope holding it to a fencepost.

Note that by age ten, the tree should be approaching mature size.
Also note that Laxton's Superb is known for being vigorous (T3 type) and therefore should grow faster and larger than average.
Also note that MM106, according to "the books" is supposed to reach about 3 metres.
This "tree" is closer to a straggly 1.5 metres.
However, along with my own "real world" proof, experiments have also been done by commercial research stations, including:

"....Although there are differences in drought sensitivity between rootstocks, with MM111 being relatively tolerant and M9, M26 and MM106 being relatively intolerant, this is not an important factor in rootstock choice because of the widespread use of irrigation. However, it does influence the choice of planting density because trees on MM106 are much smaller, relative to trees on other rootstocks, when grown on light soils under rainfed conditions...." (Rom and Brown, 1979)

"....By 30 days, M9 had 35m [cumulative] of new roots and those on MM106 had 12m [cumulative]. By 120days they had 133m and 174m respectively...." (Abod and Webster, 1989)

This experiment shows that MM106 is slow to start rooting - slower than a dwarf! - but then grows quickly if soil moisture/nutrients remain favourable - hence needs soil that doesn't dry out, otherwise it remains stunted because the root growth of trees shuts down in dry weather and MM106 is slower to restart after a dry spell ends. Here in Cambridge area, we don't get much rain - hence MM106 often struggles.

"....MM106, generally classed as semi-dwarfing, gives much less vigorous scion trees on dry than on humid sites in comparison with other rootstocks...." (Parry, 1965)

So, all I can say is: you have been warned about MM106 (and weaker rootstocks) by professional experiments and by myself. Ignore the advice at your peril. I wish I had an experienced grower in my early fruit growing years which would have saved me almost a decade of wasted time and a lot of money.
You are welcome to have the Edward VII MM106 for free, but unless your rooting zone is rather shady (therefore remains relatively cool and moist) I doubt that it will achieve what you're hoping for. In several weeks time, I may have some surplus young trees on MM111 or M25 rootstock available for free.


.

[BeatTheSeasons]

Do you know how long it takes a tree on MM111 or M25 to start fruiting? On some websites it suggest that M25 in particular takes many years (although of course that is better than having a half dead tree on MM106 that barely produces any fruit at all).

[FB.]

Do you know how long it takes a tree on MM111 or M25 to start fruiting? On some websites it suggest that M25 in particular takes many years (although of course that is better than having a half dead tree on MM106 that barely produces any fruit at all).

On occasion, I have managed to crop a M25 maiden the same year as it was planted - and because it had strong roots, the fruit were of good size and quality; not something which can be said about most dwarfs in their first few years.
I've had many M25 maidens produce a few flowers in the year of planting (but no fruit - perhaps not pollinated).
One more than one occasion I have managed to crop a M25 tree the year after it was planted.
My biggest problem is to stop them going all to fruit! The tough conditions make them think they're going to die, so most varieties rush to start fruiting at a very young age.

I would be prepared to challenge any professional orchardist that on my soil with only once-per-fortnight watering allowed and only minor soil amendmends with twice-yearly compost/manure mulch, starting with a one-year maiden whip of good quality, I could get a M25 tree to produce more and better fruit at an earlier age than any other rootstock.
I would also be willing to bet that I could train a M25 maiden whip into a very productive cordon.
M25 will blossom and fruit within a year or two of planting, although some varieties (e.g. Bramley) are notably slow to start fruting regardless of the rootstock.
MM111 is not so keen to fruit early in life. It will blossom within a year or two from planting, but tends to discard the fruitlets in the June drop until the tree is several years old. This is actually beneficial to prevent "runt-out" in poor dry soil.

Note that if you want an early crop from a vigorous-rootstock tree, it would be wise to select a very precocious variety that isn't too vigorous.

If a tree grows too strongly, it can be pruned in July-August, which reduces vigour and increases fruit bud formation for the next year. This is how cordons and espaliers are controlled for size. Otherwise they would reach the same size as a bush on the same rootstock!