dwarf plum rootstocks question

[seneca196]

I'm looking to buy two trees, one plum and one gage - one for a large container and for the open ground, both to be trained as dwarf pyramids. When looking for the regular pixy rootstock, as mentioned in most books and websites, it seems to have been replaced with two others - WA-1 (dwarfing) and WA-VIT (semi-dwarfing.) Has anyone any experience of these? I wondered how they compared. Apparently WA-1 is a bit smaller than pixy, but has better quality fruit, and WA-VIT is a bit larger than pixy, and nothing else is known. WA-1 is now recommended for dwarf trees, but WA-VIT is said to produce something a bit more vigorous and should be grown as a bush or small half-standard. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who had grown any of these, those realize if they are very new, they won't have matured yet!
Thanks.

[starloc]

All my fruit trees in the UK are in pots on all sorts of rootstocks as I just bought them wthout checking what they were!

I have not had either of those new ones, but I have found with lots of fruit trees in pots that more vigorous rootstocks are best

I have a few trees on Pixy rootstock , they seem to grow very slowly, and never produce more than one fruit and that falls off , took ages to fruit at all
On the other hand, trees on St.Julien A , grow well, never get that big as they are in a pot, maybe 6 or 7 foot tall in a 100L pot , and from the first year have produced a crop of plums

I would avoid the Pixy and plant St.Julien every time in a pot for plums and peaches

The same with apples, I have some M9 trees, they look healthy...., have never grown in size and give me about 10 apples! , for me, mm106 is much better in a pot and gives buckets of apples after a year or so when you plant a 2 year old tree

[orangepippin]

VVA1 is one of the Krymsk series of rootstocks. It was thought to be less vigorous than Pixy but in practice is probably about the same as Pixy. It has been used for some time in the USA because it is more cold-hardy than St. Julien or Pixy - although that is not really an issue in the UK.

[Kristen]

My impression is that the more dwarfing the rootstock the more difficult the plant is to look after. Within reason, for the location where the plant will grow, the most vigorous rootstock seems to me to be the easiest to look after.

[seneca196]

Thanks everyone. Whilst fruit trees in containers are a much discussed subject, the question of rootstocks always splits opinion. One the one hand, more vigorous will have more "power, go and general oompff" to reach a reasonable size, less vigorous (dwarfing) have more soil to grow into and therefore produce a healthier tree. Either one or the other, takes your pick. The form will also have an impact I suppose. Maybe a bush is better than a restricted form like a pyramid, especially if it's a compact variety. What forms do you grow your apples and plums Starloc? I'm wondering if it's better to buy a 2year old half standard or bush (it won't grow big because of the pot), rather than attempt to train/restrict a 1 year old. Can't buy anything older than 2 year old, so not many options. Always thought it would be useful for nurseries to have a few rootballed 3/4 year olds, but then they are apparently harder to establish. Oh well. I'd be interested in anyones thoughts on it.
Thanks

[realfood]

A plum on Julian A, planted in the ground can easily reach 5 m in height, and will need regular pruning with the danger of disease. I have learnt my lesson and now only plant plums on Pixie or a similar dwarfing root stock.

[seneca196]

Whilst plums are prone to disease, particularly when pruned, there must be a way to do it and not adversely affect the trees health. When you consider plums are grown in trained and restricted forms eg. fans, pyramids, there must be a way to successfully make cuts and not risk disease. Wonder if there was a way you could have reduced it's vigor, and hence restrain it's growth. I think it can be done with apple trees that grow too vigorously, but unsure about plums

[TrialAndError]

There is no problem with pruning plum trees as long as its done annually (to minimise the amount of pruning done at any one time) and when the tree is still actively growing. The only thing I wouldn't do is try to grow an espalier plum tree.

But a fan trained one is simply a normal plum tree with the branches trained in a particular direction. You may be over-complicating the subject. Many people I know have trained normal shaped plum trees to encourage the branches more sideways rather than upwards to encourage fruit production. Fan training is simply an extension of that.

[FB.]

Whilst plums are prone to disease, particularly when pruned,

They are far more prone to disease than they need to be.
Everyone grows Victoria. In the UK there are probably more Victoria than all other plum varieties combined.
Therefore everyone's tree catches the same diseases that everyone else's Victoria has accumulated over many decades - the diseases being scattered for sometimes miles around by the wind.

The less common varieties of any fruit tend to be much less troubled by diseases because the diseases haven't had decades of time and millions of trees in which to perfect the art of evolving better ways to attack that variety. Obviously some varieties are genetically superior to others, having inherited less susceptibility.

It also helps a tree to be healthy if it is grown in a soil and climate that it likes, and on a rootstock that suits the conditions. Not all parts of the UK are suitable for all types and varieties of fruit tree.

I have an Opel plum on Brompton rootstock. Nobody anywhere near me has one, although there are cankered/silverleaf-infected Victoria's and some ancient cherry trees nearby. I've deliberately been pruning it in winter to cause it to get canker and silverleaf, but it remains disease-free.

If you grow the same thing as everyone else (especially if it's the same as everyone else in your area), you'll probably end up with the same problems as everyone else.

[orangepippin]

Opal is a very trouble-free variety though, and also naturally vigorous, plus you have it on a vigorous rootstock as well - so it is perhaps not surprising your experiments have "failed". Why not try something like old Green Gage which is less robust?

[starloc]

What forms do you grow your apples and plums Starloc?

I buy 2 year old bush trees most of the time as you can get them easily on the internet.

Every year from the time the new shoots grow until mid July, every time they get to 6 inch long I pinch back the tip to about 3 inch long , it causes mass branching and many fruit buds to form. keep going and going and you get a bush size small tree that is pruned like a pyramid type , loads of fruit buds on short branches everywhere.

I do this on all plum , peach, cherry and many of the apple trees, the best plum I find is the Opal, on St.Julien A rootstock , after 4 years of planting in a 75L or 100L pot they seem to get to about 6 foot tall and only are about 5 foot wide, always get a decent crop,
One identical Opal tree I didn't prune at all, gets lots of plums but not as many as the other highly pinched ones, they are more spread out on the tree, after 4 years in the same pot size is about 7 foot tall about 7 foot wide, only a bit taller but nowhere near as many fruit buds or branches