I thought I would describe my experiment. I liked the result. Quite some time ago, maybe 6 years, I cut down a nonperforming apple tree in the front yard. I think it was sold as a semidwarf. In retrospect, I should know the rootstock, but I don't. Suckers continued to grow from that rootstock for a few years. In 2015 (I think), I grafted scion from my 15 year old North Pole apple tree onto two of those suckers. What I did here could be for any kind of apple. It just happened to be a columnar type. I posted about this variety before. This tree has been quite productive, and the shape is useful for me in my deer-infested yard - easier to fence in compared to spreading canopy apple trees.
I let the trees grow in place for about 2 years. I could have left them there permanently, but I decided I wanted to move them to a different location. That meant digging them up, and cutting their rootstock from the roots of the original, long gone, tree.
This photo shows the more difficult tree. I had let branches grow from below the graft, which I later pruned off. This photo is Oct 1, 2017.
I wondered if it would survive. That's not much root for a tree of that size, and the large root is an odd shape. However, in my experience, young apple trees can survive with surprisingly little root at time of transplanting. I watered it frequently last fall. The leaves wilted and yellowed sooner than other trees, but it survived. This spring, the tree bloomed heavily. I removed all but a couple of the apples, because I wanted it to concentrate on growing new roots. Here is the tree this week, exactly one year later. In this photo, the branches with apples are a completely separate tree, a convention but dwarf Jonagold.
So, I'm happy how this turned out. This tree did not thrive vigorously this year, which was a very hot dry summer, but it did put on about a foot of growth, and the below-the-graft rootstock put out suckers that grew about 2 feet - now pruned off. I watered it about once weekly. It survived, and the couple of apples that I let mature, were good. I think it has a great chance to survive this winter and become fully established next year.
It might have been better to hill up soil over the suckers and root them, then remove those and use for rootstocks. Or even better, buy rootstock at HOS. But this was spur of the moment, and I think it saved me a year of development, because the roots were already very established from that original tree trunk.
I had an Asian pear that died but the rootstock kept growing. It sent up several suckers. I grafted European pears on the suckers and mounded up the earth around the suckers to try to get them to root so I could cut them and transplant them. It seems to take a long time for them to root . I haven't checked them this fall, will check after leaves fall.
John, I've done so many experiments, I've probably forgotten most of them. I do keep a diary / blog, so sometimes I can find them. There is a bias there - if something fails, I figure, that's that, and usually just forget about it. If something is productive or succeeds, then I post about it and keep track. I don't mean to post only about the things that work, but it's easier to remember those.
Here is another tree made from the same scion and rootstock source, but removed from the stump a year earlier. I moved it this week, to a better spot. Hence, we get a view of the roots. This one has been in the ground for 3 years, is about 5 feet tall, and yielded a nice bowl of apples this week. It got no watering at all, this summer.
I have some shoots coming up from my yard where I removed (transplanted) a Liberty "tree" on M27 rootstock. However, I am not all that interested in growing more trees on such a restrictive rootstock.
I never know what to call these apples and this tree. As far as I can determine, North Pole is long ago off patent. So It's OK to propagate it. However, some catalogs list it as being trademarked. So technically, I guess I can't call it North Pole. I've tried to find a "generic name" for it, but so far have not found that. So I call it "The apple tree that was started from a North Pole apple tree". These are tasty, fairly crisp apples with a hint of MacIntosh flavor.
John S said
You could call them North Pole Seedling or pippin.John S
PDX OR
John, Daniel took a scion from his Northpole tree and grafted it to his propagated rootstock.
His tree is what a licensed nursery would call Northpole. He's just being coy about calling it that because it seems someone may own the trademark on that name.
John your heart is in the right place.
I got excited about these columnar trees. I already liked the North Pole and Golden Sentinel apples. Last week I collected the apples from Scarlet Sentinel. Again, I liked them. They were good tasty eating apples. They fit into my challenge to grow in deer resistant enclosuress. The productivity is good for me, a few dozen per tree. Enough for all the fresh apples we can eat, plus a few batches of apple sauce and pies.
I decided to add 2 more columnar trees, and placed an order for the ones in Raintree's catalog - Tasty Red and Golden Treat. They claim these are from a Czech program to develop disease resistant apples, which I like too. They will probably take a few years before I can report on them.
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