Advice Needed Re-Rootstock.

[snuffer]

There has been a recent initiative by the C of E (not sure if it's national or just local) to grow food in church yards that can be accessed by the local community. Our parish church is considering planting some fruit trees (most likely apples) if a suitable location within the church yard can be found.

Because I have a couple of lotties and enjoy growing veg. it is assumed that I know how to go on with fruit and so have been volunteered (willingly) to choose varieties and plant the trees.

There will only be room for dwarf specimens, perhaps espaliers or step overs.

What dwarfing rootstock should I be looking for? Will it have the same effect on all varieties or will some have their growth restricted more than others?

I have plenty of time to research (Won't be planting until autumn) but new you guys would be able to point me in the right direction.

[FB.]

How dwarf do you mean by dwarf? If you get a vigorous rootstock and neglect it, it will be dwarfed.

Keepers Nursery have a useful size guide, but take note of the required growing conditions (e.g. 'clear ground' 'good soil') to reach the size stated, and note that the stated size will only be achieved in 10-15 years good conditions; in poorer conditions the tree might take a lifetime to reach that size, or maybe never reach the size it would in ideal conditions.

Keepers Nursery

We look around and notice large old fruit trees, but we forget that they are actually 'outliers' and not typical of fruit trees because they are the ancient, lone survivor whose companion trees are long since dead. We see 'surivivorship bias' because only the biggest, strongest or luckiest trees survive; many die before they get there.

In my area, where the soil is quite shallow, poor and rainfall quite low, it takes 15 years for an apple tree on the vigorous rootstocks such as M25 or MM111 to reach 3m in size; 25 years for an apple tree to reach about 4m in size. By 40 years it might be 5m in size and by 60 years it might be 6m in size - if unpruned.
If well-pruned, in this area even the biggest of the ancient apple trees on seedling stock, M2 stock or M16 stock rarely exceed 4-5m. You won't find those stocks available nowadays; they have been replaced by MM111 and M25 (in fact, M2 was involved in the breeding of MM111 and M25).

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