I have an Apriocot tree(Morrpark) it is currently flowering so I a trying to pollinate it using camel hair brush etc.... where are th insects when you need them?
I am rather hoping fruit will be produced. If they are I would like t try and propegate grow from seed to tree. It may seem a bit prematur but I would like to try grafting and have a few of questiions
Why are fruit trees often grafted, is it to control size?
Why does there seem to be no suppliers of St Julien A rootstock on th web in the UK?
Wil
- Will
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I have trouble with pollination of my apricots too. They bloom so early that the weather often turns cold and the bees don't fly. I have the added problem of no honey bees in the whole area.
I have grown apricot trees from the seed of my own trees. I have grafted some of those to better varieties.
Fruit trees are often grafted to control size. They were grafting fruit trees long before anyone ever thought of dwarfing root stocks though. It is very hard to get cuttings of most fruit trees to root. That means if you want a certain variety, grafting is the only way to go.
I know nothing of root stock suppliers in the UK. Maybe someone else will offer information.
Steve in the Adirondacks of northern NY, where the apricots should bloom in about 2 months.
Hi Will, I also have a Moorpark Apricot here in a suburb of Chicago. It is on dwarf rootstock. In the past 5 seasons of growth, I have had two good crops, including last years and three years ago. I also do hand pollination, although last year I think I over did it. The reason for grafting is to preserve the genetic character of the original tree. Planting a seed mixes the genetics of the original tree with those of the tree from which the pollen came from. If you can control this pollination by hand pollinating or being sure that no other tree of another variety is supplying pollen, than the seed will probably bear true to the original tree. Self pollinating trees like your Apricot have a greater chance of growing the original tree from seed. Size of the tree is controlled by the rootstock upon which you graft your scion wood. I don't know about St. Julien rootstock in the UK. We have a Fruit, Nut, and Berry Inventory Book, here in the States. Perhaps there is a similar book in the UK, which should list all available rootstocks.
Also, some are "sports" which are variations that occur on a tree where one branch is somehow different from all the rest of the tree and in those cases the only way of propagating it is by grafting.
But overall, one of the main reasons beyond the keeping the genetics the same is that it's just faster to produce new trees of size by bud grafting, Taking an older rootstock plant that's growing well, and grafting the bud of another tree onto the trunk of the rootstock plant, and then waiting for the bud to "take" and show its viability by growing is faster than growing a whole new tree from a seed. Once the bud grows out enough they top of the host rootstock plant is cut off just above the point where the bud was grafted on, and the growth from that bud becomes the whole tree. Any growth below the bud graft is cut off. The graft point is kept high enough that the grafted part of the plant is discouraged from developing its own root system, particularly in graftings that are to control the size of the resulting plant.
I had an elberta tree that became so sun scalded I was sure it would just die, so I had it cut down. I regret that now because of a seedling peach tree that came up from a fallen peach from the original tree. I'm 99.999% sure that it was self pollinated as there were no other peach trees anywhere close by then, or now. The resulting tree grew tortured because I was not actively gardening due to bad knees, and back, otherwise I would have dug it out. But since I didn't dig it out, it grew without much additional water and became badly sun scalded, so much so that the tree bent near horizontal for a couple feet then continued growing upward. The tree managed to heal itself amazingly enough and has been producing peaches every year. The peaches are ok, but nowhere near as good as the original tree even though it was self pollinated most likely, it's still different enough to not be the desired way of reproducing something consistently. It lacks the characteristic bitterness toward the pit of the parent, as well as not being quite as sweet as the parent. It's better than store bought, just nowhere as good as it's mama. ;-)
Just to add a bit to what Janice said, The bud graft only works around August. If you want to do a graft in the Spring time, you want to do something like a 'Whip-and-Tongue'. I try to make my new trees in the Spring. One advantage of the Whip-and-Tongue is that you start with a piece of scion that can have two or tree buds on it. This gives you a better chance of success than a single bud graft. I like to use bud grafting to add varieties to an existing tree to produce multiple fruit types on a single tree. I would not downplay the genetics part of grafting. It could be quite disappointing to grow a tree from seed, only to find out years later that the resulting fruit is far from what you expected (usually a lot worse). Sports do occur, but they are not as common as you make them out to be. Also, not all sports are an improvement on the original fruit.
Also, I am going to give Will some sources here in the USA for the St.Julian A rootstock. He can possibly get them shipped by air to his location. I cannot necessarily recommend these places, but they are listed in the Fruit, Nut, and Berry Inventory Book as having the St. Julian A rootstock.
Bay Laurel Nursery -
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email: snipped-for-privacy@BayLaurelNursery.com
NRSP5/IR-2 Virus-Test Fruit Tree Collection - email: snipped-for-privacy@tricity.wsu.edu
Didn't know I made them out to be any particular degree of occurrence, just that they do occur, Red Bartlett pears I think was one. Didn't mean just in fruit trees that sports occur.. in fruit trees.. not that often, but they occur in ornamentals, and trees. Saw a program where they went out and looked for conifers that had naturally occurring sports or anomalies, where a branch suddenly forms dwarf forms, when they are then collected and used to make more dwarf conifers for sale in nurseries. Then there are others where a variegated branch shows up on a plant and it's nabbed and propagated by whatever means works to provide a new variety. Was the new yellow green kind of sickly looking bleeding heart a sport or a bred true from seed plant? I can't remember what the bit I saw about it said.
Anyway, you by far know more about grafting than I do. I only have picked up a bit by reading stuff here and there over the years, and I've forgotten more than I know now. I just didn't want you to think I was implying there were all sorts of sports in fruits alone. I was meaning sports are taken advantage of wherever and whenever they occur and are appealing to someone.
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