A New Orchard

[DuncanM]

Am I the only one who wants to know a full list of trees and rootstocks that FB has and a photo tour of them all?

Hate to be protruding but every single post I've read from you about apples is incredibly detailed and makes thoroughly good reading!

P.s hurry up and start selling them so I can buy from you!

[FB.]

I have now found, with all your help, a list of local varieties that originated in Leicestershire.

Has anyone heard of these

Dumelows (Dumellers) seedling
Barnack Beauty
Lord Derby
Allington Pippin
George Cave
Newton Wonder



By the way 'Early Fruiter' I love your little tree, it looks way healthier than ours and at least it bears fruit which is more than you can say about our poor specimens.

Yes, I've heard of them.

I would ask a local "expert" in spray-free growing how they cope, because from what I know of them, they may have "lost" their disease resistance, or may not give their best in your area.
If I had to choose for you, I wouldn't choose any of them on the grounds of widespread reports of problems with mildew, which is a serious problem for me.
But I don't grow fruit trees in Leicestershire's soil or climate, and would defer to a local expert who has actually grown them.

[yummersetter]

Have you come across Orange Pippin's website greenjelly? It has a lot of information on varieties including some of those.
I tend to use two types of apples for cooking, the frothy puree type, Bramley and Rev Wilkes, and also Russets ( I use Golden Russet and Ashmead's Kernel) that hold their shape when cooked for Tarte Tatin and apple cakes and when they're well ripened they're delicious as dessert too.

We planted 125 trees on mm106 a few years back that, so far, are doing well, but we're in a prime apple growing area and the land slopes to the southeast so drains well.

I have in the past had young apple trees that have 'stuck' for years like your Laxtons Superb till one winter the stem bark cracked from top to bottom, looking as if they'd been struck by lightning and they were released from their torpor and took off, doubled in size in the following year and have now caught up with the others of their age. I think its called barkbound. My old Laxton is usually very scabby. but perversely not this year!

Earlier I checked the Peasgood Nonsuch's and found about 8 lovely apples

[greenjelly]

Oh Crikey!!! I'm so sorry "FB", afterall your excellent advice as well.

If it's any consolation I'm well known amongst my friends for not being able to remember anyones name.

[FB.]

Oh Crikey!!! I'm so sorry "FB", afterall your excellent advice as well.

If it's any consolation I'm well known amongst my friends for not being able to remember anyones name.

No offence taken.
I've been "FB" to my friends for much longer than some social networking site has used it as an abbreviation and stock ticker code.
But let's have a little chuckle at those who were sucked into buying overpriced shares in the social networking site - share price chart here:
FB - SharpCharts Workbench - StockCharts.com

[orangepippin]

Has anyone heard of these

Dumelows (Dumellers) seedling
Barnack Beauty
Lord Derby
Allington Pippin
George Cave
Newton Wonder

Dumelow's Seedling is one of my favourite cookers. It cooks to a creamy puree with a good sharp flavour, and works particularly well if you mix in some chunks of another cooker that keeps its shape. It's also one of the parents of Newton Wonder.

[BUFFS]

to FB,we have had problems with the braeburn and the leaves of the russet apple are showing scab,and it has a poor crop on it this year, i have reduced th braeburn to 14ins,its now in training to become a double W shape and this years leaves have sayed clean,but the james grieve has a really good load of fruit,clean leaves and just a solid looking plant,i only got that one because i was told it was bred for this general area,it has shrugged off this rubbish summer and given what promises to be a welcome glut,bramleys excepted,its the best of my fruit...maybe just lucky as there is not a lot of apple trees local to me..

[orangepippin]

I am surprised that James Grieve is doing well for you, as it usually prefers the drier climate of the east side of Scotland - but this year has been so unusual that anything goes!

[FB.]

I am surprised that James Grieve is doing well for you, as it usually prefers the drier climate of the east side of Scotland - but this year has been so unusual that anything goes!

Perhaps it is not being grown much in West Scotland "because it likes cool and dry climate", therefore no disease-ridden old James Grieve trees nearby to pass diseases to it, therefore a healthy tree.
Most diseases nowadays are very much cultivar-adapted due to same-cultivar orchard techniques in commercial orchards and so diseases tend not to be particularly good at attacking a variety which they haven't encountered.
James Grieve was very healthy for me for several years, but suddenly was overwhelmed and quickly killed by canker in the wet weather earlier this year. No doubt a large quantity of James Grieve-adapted strain of canker spores blew in on the wind and rain, and had a long enough wet period to germinate all over the tree. One of my two Egremont Russet trees died from overwhelming canker too - usually considered resistant, but perhaps now becoming so widely grown that the diseases are adapting and spreading, as tends to happen when a variety becomes popular.
Disease resistance doesn't often last long when many people (or commercial orchards) grow the same variety because the large number of trees make it easier for a mutant disease spore to find a tree to land on, and other identical trees onto which it can rapidly spread that infection.

[greenjelly]

Now I'm beginning to get to grips with all things apples I have a couple of questions regarding the trees themselves.

Bare root or potted tree? which is best.

Also when did growing trees on root stocks begin? is this is 20th century phenomenom or was it those clever Victorians? what exactly is the advantage?

[FB.]

Now I'm beginning to get to grips with all things apples I have a couple of questions regarding the trees themselves.

Bare root or potted tree? which is best.

Also when did growing trees on root stocks begin? is this is 20th century phenomenom or was it those clever Victorians? what exactly is the advantage?

Bare-root, maiden whip is best, as long as you can find a supplier of quality trees (believe me: there are several nurseries that I wouldn't take stock from even if you gave it to me!).

Bare-root maidens are cheaper and much smaller than container-grown, but usually their small size makes it easy to establish. Older containerised trees tend to suffer from tangled, deformed and pot-bound roots, and the nutritious compost around the roots disourages them from bothering to explore into the less-fertile surrounding soil. This then leads to very slow establishment and drought stress as the root coverage area is so small.
The vigorous (MM111 and M25) maidens usually establish within a few months, unless the growing conditions are especially difficult.

Rootstocks in some forms, date back hundreds of years or more. Seedlings were also often used as they were readily available and usually made large, strong, long-lived trees (although a bit variable due to genetics).

The idea is that if I'm going to plant a hundred Bramley trees in an orhcard block, if they are all on the same rootstock, they will all be the same size, and can be managed in the same way.
If they are on seedling rootstocks, the tree size will be more variable due to each seedling being slightly different in vigour, cropping or tolerance of soils.
So if my Bramleys are on M7 rootstock, all the trees are the same, and should all be within about 1ft of each other's size when mature (e.g. perhaps 9-10ft). With seedlings, the variation would be more, although most would be in the 8-11ft range, with just a small number of abnormally slow-growing or fast-growing ones (a normal distribution curve).

Rootstocks have been selected or bred to produce certain tree sizes, or tolerance of certain conditions, or resistance to certain pests/diseases, or to encourage fruit production early in the life of the tree, and also so that the rootstock is as compatible as possible with as many scion varieties as possible (not all varieties are compatible for grafting to all rootstocks).

[orangepippin]

Perhaps it is not being grown much in West Scotland "because it likes cool and dry climate", therefore no disease-ridden old James Grieve trees nearby to pass diseases to it, therefore a healthy tree.

John Butterworth in his "Apples in Scotland" says that James Grieve does better in the east than the west, and reports it "prone to scab" in the west. I think he also ran a fruit tree nursery in south-west Scotland.

[orangepippin]

Now I'm beginning to get to grips with all things apples I have a couple of questions regarding the trees themselves.

Bare root or potted tree? which is best.

Also when did growing trees on root stocks begin? is this is 20th century phenomenom or was it those clever Victorians? what exactly is the advantage?

1-year bare-root trees generally establish better than potted trees in my opinion, and are easier to work with if you are starting a new orchard. Potted trees are arguably easier for gardens where you want an immediate impact, and can be planted at almost any time of year.

As FB says, rootstocks have been used for hundreds of years, but the initial work on standardising and creating virus-free forms was started at East Malling at the start of the 20th century. Of the apple rootstocks which are most readily available today, the dwarfing M9 is the oldest and can be directly traced back to 19th century France - so if you want to create a Victorian-period orchard it is a good choice. The M25 rootstock, which is often specified for "traditional" orchard trees is actually a relatively modern invention (1950s) although both it and the MM111 rootstock were developed from a rootstock called "Doucin" or "English Paradise", which would have been used in Victorian times.

[yummersetter]

There was a huge, angry fight in the 1870s in the pages of the Journal of Horticulture between Thomas Rivers, the largest fruit nursery at the time, and John Scott, of the Merriott nursery about the properties of various Paradise rootstocks.
Rivers promoted the Orchard House, a kind of sideless tunnel, for growing fruit trees in pots on the ground and keeping them dwarfed by pruning and cutting off the roots that came through the drainage hole, and his nursery did a lot of research and trials for dwarfing stocks for the trees he produced for this system. Scott had imported stocks from France after travelling widely through Europe and Russia, looking at apple trees and growing methods, but was an outsider to the RHS circle of apple experts and wasn't taken seriously.

[FB.]

Personally, I think that due to less efficient roots and/or impaired sapflow through the bulged graft union, the dwarf rootstocks are more likely to be:

1.
Short-lived.

2.
Prone to nutrient deficiency.

3.
Prone to drought stress.

4.
Prone to bitter pit if conditions #2 and #3 above apply.

5.
Prone to diseases and pests, made worse by #2 and #3 above.

6.
Less able to recover from damage.

7.
Slow to establish.

8.
No quicker to come into cropping than more vigorous rootstocks; dwarfs need de-fruiting in order to establish, whereas vigorous rootstocks can grow and crop as soon as they are planted.

.

In other words: if the conditions are close to perfect, dwarfs are ideal.
But if growing conditions aren't close to perfect, the more vigorous rootstocks are much more likely to give healthy, long-lived trees with good quality fruits at an early age.

I have a couple of M9's and even some M26's and MM106's which, after several years, have produced less in the whole of that time than a M25 can in the year after planting. Of the fruit that was produced on those M9 and M26's, it tended to be smaller, lower quality, much more bitter pit and didn't keep as well as it should.
Since bitter pit is a combined water and nutrient imbalance, it's hardly surprising that the more dwarfing rootstocks should cause lower fruit quality when conditions aren't ideal, because the dwarfs just don't always have the root power to find everything they need.