Plant Cloner

[Pavel314]

My wife just bought a plant cloner, which looks like a picnic cooler with a clear top. You place cuttings in a holder so that they're suspended in mid air over the tank. Grow lights above and below a pump continuously sprays an aerated nutrient enzyme broth on the bottom half of the cuttings, which encourages them to root.

I'd like to use this on some cuttings from my vineyard and the quince tree. (We're still debating the wisdom of propagating the medlar.) My question to the group is whether or not the grapes and quinces need to go dormant for a while before putting them into the cloner.

We've had a late summer here in Maryland, U.S.A., and all of the trees and vines are still fully leafed. I have enough stock to try cuttings without giving them a winter's rest but wonder which approach would work better.

Paul

[David Hare-Scott]

Is your quince grafted? Are you aiming at propagating the root stock or the graft tissue? What will you do with the clone assuming that it roots and grows?

David

[Pavel314]

I don't know for sure if the quince is grafted or not; my wife planted it here about 15 years before I met her. She thinks it is un-grafted, though.

I plan to porpagate cuttings taken from the branches of the trees or vines, not the root stock.

If they root and grow, I'll pot them in potting soil and eventually put them out in the orchard or vineyard.

Paul

[David Hare-Scott]

If it is ungrafted and it's a good tree you should get another good tree.

If it's grafted your top clone probably will not be as good as the grafted "parent".

Good luck.

David

[Ferd Farkel]

Aerocloners work great with soft cuttings. If it's a woody cutting, try heeling it in outdoors in a sand-filled trench until spring. Wound the stem and heel in deep, leaving just the terminal bud uncovered.

[sherwindu]

I have never worked with this kind of fruit tree propagation (cloning). I didn't know it was possible to do with quinces. It probably would not work for apples.

I'm curious why you are saying the top clone would not be as good as the parent. Seems like the genes would duplicate over to the clone. The size of the new tree would be a full standard, where as the original tree was probably a dwarf. Is that what you meant by 'not as good'?

Sherwin

[David Hare-Scott]

Neither have I.

I meant that if the original was grafted the combination of root and graft would be better than a clone of the graft without a different rootstock. If the graft didn't do better with a different rootstock presumeably it wouldn't have been grafted on to one, unless it was to dwarf it.

David