Initial growth on new plum tree.

[Furkin]

Hi all,

I’ve just bought a cheap ‘Opal’ Plum tree from a supermarket. It’s about 24” tall, with basically just the centre stem with cut off side shoots. The new shoots are now showing.

There is a decent healthy sprout coming from the rootstock. Do I lop that off ?
It looks like another sprout is coming through the soil, which must also be coming from the roots. Can I separate & use that ?

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This might be a basic question to most of you, so can someone explain why they graft one thing onto a different root ?

If you want a ‘opal’ plum, why not grow one ?
If the rootstock is so good, why not grow them ?

(will be replying to my Mango post as well)

many thanks

[starloc]

Myself i leave the growth from the rootstock at first as long as the rest is growing, i think it gives more energy to the rootstock to help grow roots

Most people remove them to make the top grow more quickly


The rootstock is used to control the growth/size/speed of fruiting of the tree, some rootstocks are better in different soils etc


For example the opal may be a good plum, but maybe its roots dont like it in the same conditions as people grow it, and a plum on its own roots will be much larger so harder to harvest fruit from ,

In Bulgaria i have quite a few own root fruit trees ( no idea how old , but neighbour says they were grown from seeds ), they are huge ,some not so huge, but all bigger than what can be grown from a grafted tree , no particular varietys to them some peaches, plums, cherries, cherry plums , all have stems about 6+ foot high minimum before lower branches and are too high to climb easily to get fruit off ,

The usual way to get the fruit is to put blankets on the floor , climb the tree and shake....all the fruit is bruised but still used for jams and rakia

An own root tree would be from seed, and generaly is not the same as the fruit the seed came from , the only way to gaurentee the identical variety is to take a chunk off and put it onto a rootstock

Some rootstocks make the top fruit quicker, have better resistance to desiese etc

[sugar]

You're Opal plum is (probably) grafted. So the plants sprouting out from the rootstock will not give you opal plums, but will be just your rootstock.
So just get rid of those shoots if they grow from under the graft line

[FB.]

Any shoots from below the graft will not be the same as the labelled variety (e.g. Opal). Such shoots will be the rootstock. Almonds are grafted onto plum stock. Pears are grafted onto quince stock. Apples are somtimes grafted onto crab stock. So you won't necessarily get even the same type of fruit.

If suckers are not got rid of promptly, they tend to result in an ever-larger mass of untidy shoots sprouting out from the ground around teh base of the tree. Unless they are removed at the point where they join the roots, they will come back.
If you just hack them back to ground level, each one will come back with two or three additional shoots, like a mythical medusa.

If you leave the suckers for a season, you can cut them off the root from which they came and use them as rootstocks; grafting with a piece from the tree above, to create an exact copy of your tree.

So if you won't want them, get rid ASAP by scrabbling to find their point of origin.

If you might want them for grafting, allow to grow for a season and then cut off at point of origin.

If you just decapitate them at ground level, they will grow several new suckers near to the original one and it can get messy.

Plums are much more troublesome for sending up suckers than apples or pears.

[Furkin]

Thanks folks,

The biggest shoot is on the shaft of the rootstock - about 2" above the soil.
I think I'll get rid of that. I don't want it to sap the strength from the tree's first fruiting (if indeed it intends to this year).

The one that's coming up through the soil - I will keep till next year - to try using as rootstock for,,,, whatever I decide at the time. Never done grafting before, so it will be another experience.

I have a couple of small Hazel trees that I bought from an auction site 3/4 years ago. Always grow well, but no blossom/fruit. I have no idea if they were grown from nuts or not, so have no idea if they are true, or will ever fruit. I might try using a twig from on onto the rootstock next year.

My immediate plan is to try building a cage in time, to protect my 2 cherry trees. I've got the plastic mesh, but can't work very long due to being disabled -(one of the most frustrating things is, that after manual working all my life, I can no longer do anything for longer than about 15 minutes). Only had ‘em two years & lost all the fruit to the birds both years. Hopefully the cage will be about 2 x 2 x 2 metres - or in my money, about 6foot cube.

Thanks again.

[rustylady]

Thanks folks,

I have a couple of small Hazel trees that I bought from an auction site 3/4 years ago. Always grow well, but no blossom/fruit. I have no idea if they were grown from nuts or not, so have no idea if they are true, or will ever fruit. I might try using a twig from on onto the rootstock next year.

I may be wrong, I'm no fruit expert, but I don't think you can graft hazel onto plum rootstock.

[FB.]

I may be wrong, I'm no fruit expert, but I don't think you can graft hazel onto plum rootstock.

You're probably right; I very much doubt that plum/hazel would work (not least because the two parts come out of dormancy at very different times, so successful healing of a graft is unlikely with the hazel probably healing-over its wound before the plum part even comes active (therefore no union of the plum to the hazel) - but sometimes funny things happen.

[FB.]

Thanks folks,

I have a couple of small Hazel trees that I bought from an auction site 3/4 years ago. Always grow well, but no blossom/fruit.

Hazels produce catkins (male flowers) and small, red, spiky-petaled "female" flowers. They are produced in mid-late winter (typically January-February).

Hazels grown from nuts, like many "trees" grown from seed, have a long "juvenile" phase of 5-10 years before they want to flower or fruit.
This can be reduced by making the growing conditions more difficult; no fertiliser, little watering, hard pruning of new shoots in mid-July.
Hazels can cope with very infertile and shallow soil, even if the pH is a bit off the normal 6.5, as long as the soil is not too drought-prone.

Commercial varieties of hazel (such as Gunslebert, Gustav, Kent, Butler, Cosford etc) are much more precocious; cropping within a couple of years and are usually grown on their own roots, from root suckers.

Some hazels produce more catkins while others produce more female flowers and hence nuts. A hazel grown from a nut will be a random lucky dip as to the extent of its male or femal flower production, and also its vigour and cropping.