New garden fruit tree plan - please advise

[yummersetter]

Just read about the nectria canker - I don't think I've ever seen anything like that, though all kinds of havoc could happen high up in the taller trees without me being aware of it. I did see quite a lot of individual coral spots among my photos of the Pitmaston Pineapple amid the lichen and have marked the branch to see if anything defeats it or if it invades and kills the twig - I believe that there's a healthy natural biosystem here, animal and fungal 'antibodies' if you like, that take care of a lot of attacks

[FB.]

It is my belief that MM106 (or any apple rootstock for that matter) may be more prone to phytophthora when young.
I believe that the Phytophthora enters through the burr knots which are produced - the bark literally splits open and small roots emerge. I've seen above-ground burr knots on MM106 and M25 quickly become infected by Phytophthora or Nectria and girdle the young tree.
As the tree ages, the trunk bark thickens and seems to mostly stop producing burr knots - therefore no entry points at the base of the trunk.

I think that it doesn't help that apple rootstocks are propagated from woody suckers - basically bark-covered stems are poked into the ground. Bark plus damp equals canker.
With seedlings, they have a true root, which doesn't produce burr knots. Seedling roots look more like a parsnip - whitish - and nothing at all like a bark-covered rooted cutting/stooled rootstock.
I've noticed that as rootstocks mature, the bark peels off to leave a bone-like apearance of a hard material. No doubt much more difficult for phytophthora to infect.

Add to the un-natural propagation method (stooling woody stems v seedling with true white root) and the rapid spread of disease through a clone and I think there's your answer. If you grow an orchard of 100x Cox trees, you should expect trouble with rapid spread of well-adapted diseases.
But if you grow and orchard of 100 ungrafted seedlings, the genetic variability makes it almost impossible for a disease to perfect the art of attacking them all.

When people plant a "mixed" orchard of a dozen different varieties, they fail to realise that if they're all on the same rootstock it's basically the same tree.

For the above reasons, I try to alternate MM111 and M25 in order to prevent or reduce the spread of disease from one tree to another. I also have a few M116's, MM106's, M26's and M9's dotted about too.

[FB.]

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Pic one: Picture of "bony-ness" appearance of mature MM106

Pic two and three: Picture of "burr knots" - showing as knobbles or short pink roots - causing (and emerging from) splits in the lower trunk bark - and, in my opinion and experience, leaving a "wound" which fungi can enter. I plant trees deep nowadays to minimise above-groung burr knot exposure.

.

[yummersetter]

Yes I have the 'bonyness' and burr knots with roots too. Do you think it makes a difference if the surroundings are clear or grassed up to the tree? ( Sorry Randommoose, normal service will be resumed in the morning!) This year the grass has overwhelmed any attempt to keep a clear area though, it's grown so vigorously

[orangepippin]

I have also found high grass induces these pink roots, and had always assumed it was my neglect, not the rootstock. In other words allowing thick grass to grow around the stem induced a damp microclimate which caused the rootstock to start germinating new roots, which then became air-pruned. I think it is best to keep grass and vegetation well away from newly-planted trees.

[FB.]

It is best to keep grass or mulches away from the base of the trunk. Most of my now-dead MM106's had clear ground but sometimes it can't be helped that the tree has grass up to the trunk. Certainly in nature the tree would not have the privilege of someone to keep the ground around it clear. But the burr knots do offer an entry point for pests and diseases, and MM106, for me, produces a lot of burrs.

However, MM106 will produce burrs even if there isn't grass cover. I think the burrs are simply a reflection of how easily it will root - and hence its popularity in nurseries.
MM106, if ungrafted and left to grow for a couple of seasons, will root with quite high success from early-winter cuttings of 3-4yr old wood. Other rootstocks are less easily rooted - and probably why they show more resistance to phytophthora. The dwarf rootstocks tend to have thicker bark and less roots, which probably makes phytophthora penetration more difficult (for a similar reason I quite like fruits with tough skin as it helps keep the pests out).
But mass-production of MM106 is probably causing specially-adapted strains of phytophthora whch take advantage of such a widey-grown "variety". Once one tree of a "clone" gets it, all the others of the same clone (e.g. MM106) will quickly follow. A diseased Cox will infect other Cox's quite quickly. Same with a diseased MM106 quickly spreading it to others if conditions are favourable.

[FB.]

I'm hoping that your mm106 disasters are local too, as I have 125 trees on it that were in six inch deep floods when we dug them up at an abandoned nursery.

I think I know the Nursery you're talking about. I never had any dealings with them so I don't know whether they're infested with phytophthora. It is possible that their nursery remained free from the really nasty strains that some other nurseries appear to have.
It is also possible that your trees - being a few years old - had matured enough to be more resistant to infection or at least to have enough girth that any phytophthora cankers had less chance of encircling the whole lower trunk and cutting off all sapflow.
I've never had a MM106 recover, but I have had a small proportion of infected M25's recover; the young tree being left with a hollowed-out area which had died (showing some inner wood) and which subsequently gradually healed-over.
I think the ability to recover after infection is due to M25's great vigour (if it can't resist it, it'll try to outgrow it - sometimes successfully if the conditions favourable to the disease cease for a while).
As I've mentioned before: Blenheim is not resistant to canker, but as soon as the conditions stop being favourable to the disease the Blenheim will get to work healing-up the damage and gradually outgrow the problem. Vigour definitely helps a tree to recover - nicely demonstrated by my earlier picture of a aphid-ravaged young M25.

[yummersetter]

Yes, those trees were 5 years old when we shifted them, so up to 3 inches diameter trunks and quite mature bark. I won't ever forget that week, I've never been so saturated in freezing mud! I find that older trees take off better than maidens here, though those were a risky project but at £0.70p each for 50 varieties it was worth taking the chance. I think that if they survived that relocation they must be pretty healthy.

We later rescued ten year old crab apples from the same place and they're all looking terrific - needed hefty staking though, at first and the drive home with teenage trees in the trailer was 'interesting'.

[FB.]

.....my Ashmeads Kernel apples aren't really healthy either....

What's wrong with them?

I get lots of bitter pit, but I think that if I used a really vigorous rootstock and didn't feed/water much, that the bitter pit would go away. What's the rootstock of your Ashmead's?
I think a large part of the problem of bitter pit (compared to "old times") is the weak/dwarf/semi-dwarf roots we now use - these roots not being as efficient at supplying the full range of nutrients to the canopy (hence how they dwarf the tree), with the fruit showing this malnutrition in the form of bitter pit.

[Randommoose]

Hi,
I've been looking up apples etc and have made the following decisions. Not quite narrowed it down in some places though!

Apples:
Early
1. Beauty of Bath (grafted onto half of existing tree)
2. Discovery (grafted onto half of existing tree)
I don't yet know whether to get scion wood from the National Fruit Collection (they have these in stock) or buy them as maidens and chop them up. Anybody have any prunings from either of these?

Mid season choice of:
Ellison's Orange
Red Windsor
Charles Ross

Late season choice of
Sunset
Fiesta
Rajka
but I also have a list of other possibilities. Leaning towards the above as Keepers has them fan trained. Are any of these good at staying on the tree?


Plums
Early:
Opal

Late
Marjorie's Seedling probably
Verity
Guinevere

All the above trees will be fan trained apart from one (in the more shaded area) which will be a bush/half standard.

At the moment, I need to check availability to narrow down the choices. I am also trying to bear in mind getting different flavours/varieties (e.g. not all Cox offspring) so that there are different tastes and different disease suceptibilities.

Please feel free to comment on the above plan. Is there anything really obvious I have missed?

Thank you
Randommoose

[yummersetter]

I have a vast Beauty of Bath tree - its ornamental and the apples come at a time when I haven't eaten one for months but if you disregard that, its not a great flavoured apple. I usually take two bites and sling it. The others I've already commented on where I've got experience of them.
Have you thought of Japanese plums? Opal and Marjories aren't hard to find in farm shops but to taste a good Japanese plum you have to grow it yourself - Satsuma's my favourite so far, still waiting for the newer planted ones to fruit. My best UK plums are Early Transparent (gage type) and Kirke's Blue

[Randommoose]

I've never actually tried Beauty of Bath, it is in there as it is the earliest and the plan was for it to share a tree with Discovery so I don't get too many of either (and maybe make juice if I have too many). That way I'd have a few early apples before getting the mid-season and late apples. I'll have a think.
No, I hadn't thought about Japanese plums (didn't know they existed). I've had a look though and they aren't really readily available for sale. I think I might just stick to the more straight-forward varieties.
I had considered Early Transparent and Kirke's but I have space for two trees so would rather an early and a late to spread the season. As they are mid season I ruled them out for that reason.

Thanks for your advice and I will think more about Beauty of Bath.

Randommoose

[yummersetter]

Have a look at Reads Nursery for Japanese plums,they're the bland bloated ones they sell in supermarkets but home grown they're very good.

Early Transparent is ripe about three weeks ahead of Kirkes, which is plenty of time to eat the first lot before the second are ready. In my house garden I grow those two, Victoria and Anna Spath and it gives me a good range of flavour types and uses over about two months - more if you count freezing, drying and preserving.

[FB.]

I have a vast Beauty of Bath tree

Big BoB, eh?
How big and how old is he?

[yummersetter]

She, if you please! Maybe about 75 years old, well over 50, anyway. About 30ft high and twenty across - I'll look out some pictures in the morning. ( I always estimate height with chinese acrobats standing on each others shoulders @ 5ft each and width with the ensuing collapse!). In desperate need of surgery this winter.