Growing new rootstocks for grafting fruit trees

[fishpond]

Anyone know how to propagate rootstocks for apple and pears ie MM106, Quince A.
Any help much appreciated.

[FB.]

To start with, you'll have to buy some in, or spend a couple of years growing some seedlings (which will be a bit more vigorous than MM106, a bit more variable in size, more variable in disease/pest tolerance*, soil tolerance* and may take a couple of years longer to start fruiting).

*
Personally, I find the common MM106 and Quince rootstocks to be quite fussy - they do not grow well in light sandy/gravelley/chalky soils or in drier places such as East Anglia (Quince A and MM106 are true dwarfs in my soil - easily kept to 4ft, with smallish fruit to match).
Quince often does not do well in dry or alkaline/chalky soils - of which there are many in Hampshire and South-East England. It suffers from "lime chlorosis" which affects nutrient uptake and causes the leaves to be mottled and striped yellow, resulting in poor photosynthesis and weak vigour.
Quince rootstock achieves its dwarfing effect by being partially incompatible with any pear grafted onto it. This incompatibility varies with different scions; the worse the incompatibility the more weak-growing the scion. Some scions will not survive on Quince, but grow as well as any other pear when grafted onto pear stock (Pyrodwarf, Pyrus communis/seedling). Some scions listed as "weak vigour" are only weak when on quince, while some that appear strong-growing are often simply more compatible with quince.

On chalky soil, I would recommend at least looking into apple MM111, pear Pyrodwarf and plum Brompton. They are much more rugged and tolerant of less-than-ideal soils than MM106, Quince A and St.Julien A. They all thrive in my soil where the common rootstocks struggle.


I recently received a few dozen rootstocks (mostly MM111) from Blackmoor - works out just under £3 per stock once carriage charges are included.

Rootstocks tend to be available for only a short period in winter (order in November-December for despatch in January-February).
Link here, but as you can see they no longer have any apple rootstocks available and only a limited selection of cherry, plum and pear:
Rootstocks - For grafting & budding your own fruit trees - Buy Online

Bought-in rootstocks can be grafted straight away, or bud-grafted in summer.

- or -

If you keep a few of them un-grafted, after two or three years they will be large enough, and the wood mature enough to:

1.
Take cuttings of 2-3 year old wood, ideally from shoots which have curious small lumps on them - the small lumps will root by themselves if kept in a cool damp place without too much direct sun.
Some people "recycle" their rootstock by using the piece that was cut off during grafting as a cutting - but its rooting chances are best if it is 2-3 years old with lumps on it (lumps are called burrs or burrknots).

- or -

2.
The 2-3yr old ungrafted rootstock can be cut off near ground level, leaving just a few buds on the lower stem. As those buds send out shoots the following summer, pile loose soil, compost or sawdust over their bases to encourage them to root.

[boundtothesoil]

Can't add anything to FB's authorative reply, except to say that where I live in West Wales, the soil is nearly always moist or wet and MM106 does well, whilst varieties of M26 tend to remain rather too small for my liking.
Also,under my conditions, cuttings of MM106 rootstock are more successful in rooting than M26 cuttings. Likewise, stoolbeds (FB's option 2 for propagating rootstocks) of MM106 tend to produce more new shoots per annum than stool beds of M26. It's a 'horses for courses' thing

[FB.]

Can't I live in West Wales, the soil is nearly always moist or wet and MM106 does well

Yes, with plentiful moisture (rainfall) MM106 is more vigorous than expected and equal to MM111.

cuttings of MM106 rootstock are more successful in rooting than M26 cuttings.

Yes, I've found MM106 to be the easiest rootstock to root from cuttings, and a good producer as a stoolbed as long as it is adequately fed and watered.

It's a 'horses for courses' thing

Agreed. What does well for one person won't necessarily do well for someone else in a different soil and climate.
Unless you plan to irrigate, feed and spray, it is not always possible to say "I want to grow xxxx" because xxxx might need different conditions.

Here's the Met Office climate maps.
Met Office: UK mapped climate averages

The difference in rainfall between Wales and East Anglia is striking.
With twice the rainfall, the average plant is going to grow twice as fast or twice as big when mature.
Some plants require a minimum amount of rainfall; MM106 is one of those.
MM106 can slightly outgrow MM111 in higher-rainfall climates (and really likes such climates, although doesn't like waterlogging), but in low rainfall climates MM111 far outgrows MM106; MM106 struggles to grow at all in the really dry areas unless irrigated.

[fishpond]

Many Thanks to you all for your replies.
I now need to update all my fruit growing books (certainly with regards to these new root stocks) and have a cup of tea.

[orangepippin]

The difference in rainfall between Wales and East Anglia is striking.
With twice the rainfall, the average plant is going to grow twice as fast or twice as big when mature.

You would also need to take into account length of growing season (Aberystwyth wins with about 20 days longer than Cambridge), sunshine hours (probably about equal, because Aberystwyth is one of the sunnier parts of west Wales), and perhaps most significant of all, average maximum temperatures (Cambridge is way ahead at 23C vs 18C)

If you live in Cambridge and are prepared to irrigate your trees, you have a substantial advantage over Aberystwyth on any rootstock.

[boundtothesoil]

If you live in Cambridge and are prepared to irrigate your trees, you have a substantial advantage over Aberystwyth on any rootstock.

Doomed to be a tortoise . Oh well, Ceredigion has never been a significant fruit growing area, although many farms appear to have had small 'home orchards', the remnants of which can sometimes be seen in the form of a couple of decrepit trees still standing in the nearest field to the farm buildings. Also, like many small towns, Aberystwyth used to have a sprinkling of small market gardens on the south facing slopes on its outskirts.

Anyway, what I really meant to say here was that although I favour MM106 over M26 under my growing conditions (for the reasons FB gives), I have just taken delivery of 13 M116 rootstocks, and am going to graft up a few 'early' varieties and compare them with performance on both MM106 and M26.

The main problem I'm finding with several varieties on M26 over here is getting significant new vegetative growth on an annual basis. My 5-10 year old trees are stuck at around 5ft height. This is occurring with Katy, Discovery and Adam's Pearmain amongst others - all heavily spurred but seemingly stuck size-wise!! There aren't enough one year vegetative shoots to tip back in the winter. The same problem doesn't seem to occur with MM106.

[FB.]

You would also need to take into account length of growing season (Aberystwyth wins with about 20 days longer than Cambridge), sunshine hours (probably about equal, because Aberystwyth is one of the sunnier parts of west Wales), and perhaps most significant of all, average maximum temperatures (Cambridge is way ahead at 23C vs 18C)

If you live in Cambridge and are prepared to irrigate your trees, you have a substantial advantage over Aberystwyth on any rootstock.

Agreed.
Despite the growing season in East Anglia being shorter than the SouthWest of the UK, I often have fruit ripe a week or two earlier due to a combination of higher peak daytime temperatures, less cloud in this dry region (meaning brighter days) and a light/dry soil which is therefore airy (rather than cold and wet) so warms quickly in the spring sunshine and gets plants growing earlier in the year.

This year I've been harvesting open ground (not forced) rhubarb since the second week of February due to the mild winter.

[FB.]

....I have just taken delivery of 13 M116 rootstocks....

Where did you get those from? I haven't seen M116 available as ungrafted rootstocks since I got a handful 'from a mate' several years ago for trialling.

[FB.]

The main problem I'm finding with several varieties on M26 over here is getting significant new vegetative growth on an annual basis. My 5-10 year old trees are stuck at around 5ft height. This is occurring with Katy, Discovery and Adam's Pearmain amongst others - all heavily spurred but seemingly stuck size-wise!! There aren't enough one year vegetative shoots to tip back in the winter. The same problem doesn't seem to occur with MM106.

You get plenty of rain, but what's the soil like - and what's the pH or the subsoil?

M26 is a bit less fussy about rainfall than MM106, but is quite a bit fussier than MM106 about the soil fertility.

MM106 will grow in surprisingly low-nutrient soil as long as it gets the regular plentiful rainfall that it is so hungry for.
M116 and MM111 will also grow well in low-nutrient soils - M116 having average tolerance of dry soils and MM111 having good tolerance. MM106s tolerance of dry soils is poor.
It's the lack of regular plentiful rainfall that spoils MM106 for me; it'll grow well in my very low-nutrient soil if I irrigate all through the spring, summer and autumn - or if I can find a spot with cool, damp, shady soil but where the tree can get plenty of sun on its leaves - planting a half-standard MM106 several feet from a North-facing wall/fence will work in this area and it'll grow like a MM111.

Actually, MM106 isn't too bad at surviving drought if you can get it to establish because it has lots of soft fibrous roots.
The trouble is MM106 won't grow thick woody roots to expand its root coverage if the soil keeps drying out, so in drier soils it gets stuck in a loop of only ever growing small fibrous roots, not growing big roots wide and deep, so never establishes properly in drier soils.

I think you'll find M116 to be satisfactory; better than M26 but potentially a lot more vigorous than M26.

[boundtothesoil]

Where did you get those from? I haven't seen M116 available as ungrafted rootstocks since I got a handful 'from a mate' several years ago for trialling.

After a bit of a search I couldn't find anywhere in the UK but found a nursery in Ireland. They were very helpful.

Link below:-
Fruit Trees from fruitandnut.ie

[boundtothesoil]

You get plenty of rain, but what's the soil like - and what's the pH or the subsoil?

My soil isn't intrinsically fertile, but I've improved it where I've planted fruit trees, over many years with annual compost and blood/fish/bone additions. It's grassland, with less than a foot of reasonable topsoil, under which is very stony clay. pH of topsoil around 6.5. The soil never dries out sufficiently for the grass to show any signs of drought during the summer. I've kept it under grassland in order to improve the porosity of the soil with respect to draining away the high rainfall.