Apples at Christmas

[veggiechicken]

Is it the apple trees or Snohare who needs a drink because they're dried out?

[snohare]

Snohare they look like they might need a drink maybe if they've dried out.

Are you gonna send them back?

Don't know yet. I phoned the company today, they are going to get someone to phone me back from the nursery about the M27 issue, but meantime they said to put them in a bucket of water. So that is what I am going to do, and hopefully the dog won't drink the water !

[FB.]

Yes, the trees need a drink but roots will not withstand lack of oxygen for hours on end.
Don't leave them "drowning" in the water for more than eight hours or the roots may suffocate, become distressed and subsequently be prone to being infected with root-rotting fungi - with the tree dying as a result.
After they've soaked for a couple of hours, put them into some damp soil or pack some damp newspaper round the roots and re-seal the bags.

The trees look like they have leafed-out in transit, probably due to being stored in a warm warehouse/van for a few days.

Additionally, they look mightily strong for M27. I would not be surprised if they are MM106 or close equivalent. If you re-pack them, a picture of the lower trunk (from ground level to just above the graft) might help to see which rootstock they really are - it is possible to make a good guess as to which rootstock it is, just from the appearance.

[snohare]

No more than eight hours...that's worth knowing. I have willows that have been in a bucket of water for over a year, but I know they are a special case !
I'm thinking newspaper, dampened and with a bit of soil added - saves the problem of thawing large bucketfuls of molehills, still gives the roots life support which will not be too chilled.
I did wonder if they were M27s, despite the labels. I know when I worked as a treenurseryman, sometimes what the paperwork said and what was actually in the bag, varied a bit... (Although to be honest, I expected rather that they might have run out of the M106s and started throwing in buckshee M27s just to fulfill the orders - I would guess most customers would never complain.)

[FB.]

snohare

I'm not saying for certain that they're MM106 rather than M27, but if they're M27's they've grown very well for their age and seem to have a lot of vigour with all those new shoots!

A pic of the graft area might help - but no guarantee.

Regarding not being in water for too long: there is a particular fungus which lives in many nursery, orchard, allotment or even garden soils (and may be in the traces of soil on bare-root trees). Just as we practise crop rotation on our veg plots, nurseries ought to rotate their fruit tree plantings to avoid build-up of soil diseases, but many carry on planting the same old tree types in the same old soil and the diseases build up.
Apple root-rotting fungi thrive in saturated/waterlogged/flooded soil.
MM106 is extremely susceptible to its attack, requiring only the slightest excuse to become infected, stop growing and then slowly decline over a period of up to several years after planting. Some rootstocks have partial resistance but no rootstock is immune to a heavy or prolonged attack. Free water - flooding/waterlogging - or immersing in a bucket - for more than several hours can put the trees at risk. They are most at risk if they are actively growing (roots use more oxygen when growing). Plants which are dormant have low oxygen usage and can survive for longer in saturated/flooded conditions.

Willow trees, of course, are meant to grow in saturated/flooded conditions (they have very high water usage) and willows are completely immune to the disease.

It is MM106's extreme susceptibility to root-rotting fungi (often brought from the nursery, but which also easily infects the wounded/damaged roots of a bare-root MM106) which has cost me heavy tree losses over the years and nowadays I won't touch MM106.
I lost four 5-10yr-old MM106 bushes during 2011 alone (Bountiful, D'Arcy Spice, Ellison's Orange, Worcester Pearmain - originally from three different suppliers and since my soil does not flood, they must have been infected when they arrived, but the disease was so minor that it could not be seen).

While on the subject of root rots, I reckon that the resistance is roughly as follows:

Immune: none
Resistant: M9
Partial resistance: M27, M26, M116, MM111
Intermediate: M25 (no resistance, but is so vigorous that it can sometimes outgrow diseases)
Susceptible: MM106

The commercial growers are losing MM106 trees left, right and centre to root diseases and that's why they are crying-out for the M116 rootstock, which has recently started to come available. I have a couple of M116's. They are a good, multi-disease-resistant substitute for MM106, but - like MM106 - the M116 dislikes soil which dries in summer.

[snohare]

Well, I ended up phoning them back because the nursery didn't phone me. Apparently, all their paperwork indicates that they are what they are supposed to be, which is odd since I have a piece of paper here that says they are M27s ! Anyway, they said stick 'em in the ground/compost/buckets, and I have a growing season in which to see if they work out - if not, then refund or replacement is on the table. I can live with that, I've stuck the leafless one outside in a pot, the leafy one I put in a bag of molehill/sand mix (there was a lot of clay in the soil, it was very claggy.)
So now I have the joy of a shoulder high apple tree, in full leaf, sitting in my living room... and when it goes out to Braemar, they will have the same conundrum.
If only it had a bit more growth on it, it would do nicely as a Christmas tree. There certainly isn't room for another tree in this room !

[FB.]

If you can take a picture of the lower trunk, from the ground to just above the graft, I can make a reasonable guess as to the rootstock. There's a big difference in vigour - two-fold or more - between M27 and MM106 and you won't want to find in five years time that you have M27 (1metre) when you actually wanted MM106 (3metres).