Anyone have much experience in propagating root stocks?
I planted some root stocks to be kept as root stock sources so I can continue to expand my orchard for the rest of my life.
I'm particularly interested in
Colt Cherry
M7 Apple
St. Julian-A Plum
What's the best way to propagate each of these? I've heard M7 apple suckers easily (that's a good thing). I haven't been able to find anything about propagating Colt cherry or St. Julian-A plum.
I've had good luck with the stooling method of rootstock propagation. One tip I learned from a local commercial rootstock farm is to plant the mother plant at a 45 degree angle. This increases the surface area of the mother plant when pruned back to the ground so you will get more shoots/rootstocks from it.
I've collected a number of suckers with their roots from my existing apples trees (on M7) for the purpose of creating new rootstocks. It helps to pile up some compost on one side of the trunk temporarily to encourage sucker growth. Once a cluster of suckers is a few inches tall I carefully cut them out with as many roots as possible and replant together in a pot. You can try to separate and replant then, or in my case I replanted the cluster in a pot for a season and then separated and repotted each individually the following season when they were larger and stronger. I now have 20-30 healthy individual rootstocks to use.
Idyllwild
jafar
Marsha H
Viron
John S
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