Training an apple tree

[gingerneil]

Morning all
I have a West facing wall in my garden that I would like to train a tree along. I have spotted a mixed family tree of Cox, Worcester and Bramley. However, it comes as an upright 3yr old bush tree in a 10l pot. Various googling suggests a should be looking at a smaller maiden tree for training. Will I have problems with a bush tree? I'm not looking for any fancy patterns or an ornate espelier.
Family Apple Trees for Sale Online | Bramley + Cox + Worcester

[FB.]

My advice:
Don't buy a tree of a common variety unless you don't mind most of the fruit being destroyed by pests or diseases unless you spray.
Bramley, Cox and Worcester are among the most commonly grown in the UK - in gardens and for supermarkets.

You'll also soon find that it probably becomes very one-sided, as the Bramley bit will grow much faster and larger than the other parts.

[FB.]

I should also have added:

In low-rainfall regions such as East Anglia, the comonly-used MM106 rootstock is not at all happy; MM106 does not cope well with large variations in soil moisture - conditions which happen in most years in East Anglia.
If planted in a damp corner (but never waterlogged) it will grow normally. If not, it may not grow at all.

And that doesn't even begin to consider the depth and fertility of the soil in which you plan to grow the tree.
In East Anglia, there's a lot of infertile and dry sand and chalk - which isn't very kind to fruit trees - with the result that they can be poor performers (can't grow and can't fruit) on such soils unless grown on vigorous rootstocks.

So definitely check the depth and quality of your soil. Some types of fruit tree grow best on certain soils. I actually said in a topic a few weeks ago:
For best results without spraying and irrigating, don't say "I want", but say "what variety and rootstock grows well in my area"?

[gingerneil]

Great reply - thanks.
What varieties would you recommend?
I am planning into a raised bed surrounded by sleepers. The best is about 3x0.5m and about 30cm deep. I can control watering quite well through my irrigation system, and should be able to also control the soil well too - at least in the area of the bed. Beyond that it's quite sandy.
What rootstock would you recommend?

[FB.]

How large do you want it to get?

In a raised bed, the soil will be quite good and deep.

If irrigated, water will be plentiful.

Therefore a tree in such a situation will get much larger (and much more quickly) than one planted in ordinary garden soil. Probably twice the size - say 4-5m for MM106 in the raised/irrigated bed, compared to about 2m in the garden in a dry region without irrigation.
Note, though, that MM106's growth tends to be very erratic in drier soils, so although it might get to 2m when mature, it may grow strongly in wet years and not at all in dry years. Therefore not predictable enough.
M26, M116 or MM111 are much more consistent in their growth:soil:climate behavoir, and much more disease-resistant than MM106 (I would never grow MM106 again, after all the problems I've had with ot growing in dry soil and with heavy losses to diseases).

As for varieties - what kind of fruit do you like?
Eaters, cookers?
Summer, autumn or winter-ripening? The later they ripen, the better they tend to store through the winter.

[gingerneil]

4m would be okay - I can train it horizontally and keep it pruned as needed. The walk is the side of a garage, so is about 2.5m high and a good 4m long

[FB.]

I would also select the rootstock according to the variety you plan to grow.

Bramley on MM106 in good growing conditions (i.e. not dry soil!) would be more like 6m, compared to an average variety about 4m and some slow-growing varieties more like 2m.

Contrary to what "the books" say, rootstock is not the only factor in determining the mature size of a tree.
The variety grafted, the soil depth/fertility and the amount of water all play a part - and in some cases quite a significant influence.

My soil is shallow, infertile and low-rainfall, so I plant at 3-4m spacing even on the most vigorous rootstocks. Average-growth-rate varieties on M25 rootstock and vigorous-growing (often triploid) varieties on MM111 rootstock.

[gingerneil]

I like the idea of a family tree - I don't have space for more than one. If one variety is more vigorous, can I not just prune that more?

[orangepippin]

Although it is theoretically possible to train a family tree against a wall, I don't think it would work well in practice. The classic problem with family trees is that one arm takes over and dominates the tree, and this would be very noticeable if trained as a fan. In addition, the easiest fans are Y-shaped fans, which obviously only have 2 arms. Also a 3-year family tree is perhaps too old to be re-trained as a fan.

So I think you need to go for either a family tree or a wall-trained tree.

If you want a family tree, and you want it one of the varieties to be Bramley, make sure it is the Bramley20 clone. This is a distinctly less vigorous form of Bramley. If you use the regular Bramley it will, as FB suggests, take over the tree eventually.

If you want to use the wall - and I recommend you do, because of the potential for better fruit quality from the microclimate of the wall - then the number of trees you can grow is determined by the length of the wall. I would allow 3m-4m (10ft-14ft) for a semi-vigorous apple fan. Alternatively you could plant cordons, which are effectively a single stem planted at 45 degrees - you only need to allow 1m between these, so you can probably plant several.

If you prefer free-standing rather than trained trees, then you can try the very dwarfing M27 rootstock, which restricts the height of the tree to around 1.5m or so. These trees can also be planted very close together, and are arguably the most productive of all apple trees for the space taken.

[gingerneil]

Thanks all for your advice. I visited a local nursery today that had a family tree with Cox, Katy and spartan. The person I spoke to seemed think it would be more than fine, but maybe he just wanted a £35 sale!

[FB.]

If you prefer free-standing rather than trained trees, then you can try the very dwarfing M27 rootstock, which restricts the height of the tree to around 1.5m or so. These trees can also be planted very close together, and are arguably the most productive of all apple trees for the space taken.

I should emphasise that M27 requires good growing conditions, and is not suitable for planting directly into most garden soils.
It needs fertile soil, periodic watering, and will not withstand any plants growing in competition with its roots.
So in this case, with a raised bed and irrigation, M27 would be OK. Personally I'd go one up to M9 for a bit extra durability, and a bit more tolerance of damage or occasional irrigation failure.

[FB.]

Thanks all for your advice. I visited a local nursery today that had a family tree with Cox, Katy and spartan. The person I spoke to seemed think it would be more than fine, but maybe he just wanted a £35 sale!

The Cox part can suffer very badly from diseases, so it's a gamble. Katy and Spartan should be OK.

Why must you have a triple apple family tree? Why can't you grow just one, which makes pruning much easier, or why not grow two or three cordons, which I find are much easier to manage than fans or espaliers.
The lower-vigour rootstocks used for cordons (such as M9 or M26) are not nearly as prone to sending out long upright shoots each summer, which is a common problem on many espaliers/fans grown on more vigorous rootstocks. The strong upright shoots need religious summer pruning or they steal the nutrients from the growing fruits and result in bitter pit. Not to mention poorer fruit ripening.

I'd much rather have two or three cordons on M9/M26 than a fan or espalier on MM106/MM111.
Then there's MM106's intolerance of fluctuations in soil moisture has a high risk of causing problems if you don't ensure the soil stays moist. What happens if there's a couple of droughts and a hosepipe ban?

There's also the much greater disease resistance (to root rots) of M9 or M26, as compared to MM106 which seems to need no excuse at all to suffer death from root rots, a few years after planting and just as it's coming into full cropping.

[orangepippin]

I should emphasise that M27 requires good growing conditions, and is not suitable for planting directly into most garden soils.
It needs fertile soil, periodic watering, and will not withstand any plants growing in competition with its roots.
So in this case, with a raised bed and irrigation, M27 would be OK. Personally I'd go one up to M9 for a bit extra durability, and a bit more tolerance of damage or occasional irrigation failure.

Yes M27 apple trees need regular watering, reasonable soil, and can't compete with other plants ... but apart from that they are actually much easier to grow than the books suggest, and they can be planted very close together (we have 10 trees in a space 7m by 3m). M9 trees are much bigger, so you get a lot more apples, but they need more space. M9 is also a good choice for cordons, whereas M27 is not vigorous enough. I think I would choose either 3 trees on M27 or 3 cordons on M9, in either case you would need about the same amount of space as 1 family tree (on MM106).

[orangepippin]

Thanks all for your advice. I visited a local nursery today that had a family tree with Cox, Katy and spartan. The person I spoke to seemed think it would be more than fine, but maybe he just wanted a £35 sale!

Are you going to train it against the wall, or leave it as a free-standing tree? It's much easier to decide these things when you have the actual tree in front of you!

[gingerneil]

I only have space against a wall - so it will definitely be trained.