dwarf trees

[greenshoot]

Hi!

I posted my original thread in the archived section - oops, sorry!

I have a dwarfed apple tree in the garden, which produces amazing fruits every year! So last year I had a go at growing some seeds from the fruit of that tree. They are now around 8 inches tall.

I did a little research on dwarf trees, and it seems they are grafted on to some sort of root stock. So I'm guessing my plants will become fully fledged apple trees, and not dwarfed?

Also, if I took cuttings from the original tree, will those cuttings grow into dwarf trees?
(guessing not too).

Do I have any other options other than to take cuttings from the tree and graft it onto a dwarfing root stock?

Thanks for your advice in advance.

[nickdub]

Generally speaking your guesses are correct - in order to get a dwarf tree you need a dwarfing root-stock and then you have to bud or graft your scion on to it.

You can buy root-stocks sometimes - you can try to get a sucker to start growing from a root of a tree you have access to and so ultimately get a new root-stock ( slow but cheap), or you can graft more scions on to part of an existing tree.

For completeness sake it might be noted that, contrary to a lot of opinion, some scions will always make bigger trees (eg bramley) than others do on the same root-stock, simply because they grow more strongly.

[Zelenina]

Apart from the size, there's no guarantee the seedlings will have good fruit or be anything like the parent tree. So if you're going to go to the trouble of getting root-stocks and grafting onto them, it would probably be better to use cuttings from the tree as scions rather than your seedlings. And no, those cuttings won't turn out dwarf without a dwarfing root-stock. Your only other option, and it would be easier though maybe less interesting, is to buy some more dwarf trees.

[greenshoot]

Thanks for your replies and clearing that up for me.

I did some further research after posting the question. I'll be going for M9 root stock and taking some scions from my existing tree. So excited!!

Some good info below:

Webinar on Apple grafting (SSE Heritage Farm)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mujxy4MG8wA

Collecting scion for grafting (Stephan Hayes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxJgB-2zOoQ

Growing your own root stock:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn9nzWr9Q1w

And finally this place looks good to buy root stock - has anyone purchased from here? Recommended?
https://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/appl...pear-rootstock

[nickdub]

Glad you are going to have a go - a couple of thoughts - grafting/budding is not hugely difficult, but it is a bit finicky, unless you have a very good eye and an extremely steady hand, be prepared for some failures - I'm happy if I get better then a 60% success rate.

If you have a live tree for the scion and a root-stock in a container, then approach-grafting is another method, and one which will work very frequently.

There is a thread on this web site where some people have kindly offered scion wood (I posted on it my self a little while ago)

Budding is a better option than grafting for a lot of fruit like plums and peaches, as it carries less risk of disease. Grafting is easier and works fine for apples.

I have bought root-stocks in the past, but that was over 30 years ago :-) - so I can't comment on those for sale now. Propagating more root-stocks from one is easy enough, it just takes time ....