Fruit tree suckers

[chocccie]

Is it worth my putting some of these in a nursery bed, with my hardwood cuttings? 

I know I won't get the same tree as the fruit tree due to root stock, but will the suckers grow?  I don't even mind if they don't bear fruit.

Does anybody have any experience of this?

thanks

[Pierre ZFP]

Are they suckers from above or below the graft (these days all fruit trees are grafted on to root stock)?  If above, you will get the same tree as the original but without the vigour of the root stock.  If the sucker is from the root stock then you get all the vigour without the dwarfing attributes of the actual fruit tree so they could get quite large.  As I write this I realise that its a lose-lose situation and I don't think I'd bother unless, as you say, you're not bothered about them bearing fruit.

[Framboise]

I wouldn't bother with the suckers personally.   What is more satisfying is enjoying a really tasty apple, keeping the pips, planting them up then seeing a few months later the beginnings of a new tree or orchard even.   I have got three little ones I planted 18 months ago, now four inches tall and their new leaves just beginning to open.   That is very gratifying!

 

  

[Dave&Olive]

hi ok

 fruit trees are nearly always grafted , like ZFP said. apple is normally grafted onto plumb trees but modern methods prob something  different now ,seeds from fruit will revert back to there native source or will create a hybrid, so if you take a seed from say a granny smith you could end up with at worst a crab apple at best a new hybrid , if you take a sucker and plant it you might even end up with an oak tree

Hans Schmidt   he must be  Welsh

same thing

    Dave

[Framboise]

Oh you are right there!   With things the way they are you might find that the rootstock of your tree is a salmon and it leaps into the river and is away before you can shake a spade at it. Or it glows in the dark.

As I recall the grafted apple trees are usually put onto something like a crab apple because they have sturdy strong root systems whereas some of the "top halves" produce good fruits but have weak roots.  Likewise grafted roses.    Most are put onto something akin to a wild climbing rose because they have excellent rooting systems yet the flowers are not so exotic, thus when you get a long stringy sucker coming up below the scion you should chop it out before it overtakes the grafting on the top and strangles it.  There I knew those lessons in Rural Science would come in use one day!

 

 

[hoverfrog]

if the suckers are from the rootstock plant them anyway. When they are established you can graft something else onto them, maybe even a bud-graft from the original tree when you prune it. What have you got to lose?!

It's not rocket science, it's not even hard, and if the grafts take then you've gained a lot with no outlay! If it fails, then just keep trying.

Dad used to use sellotape round the grafts - by the time the rain and sun had removed the sticky the grafts were usually well away :)

Someone else who studied rural science??? Wow!

[chocccie]

That was at the back of my mind hoverfrog.  If I can get the rootstock growing well, I can graft and above rootstock piece onto it later.  I've done a bit of grafting in the past with some successes.

I've planted them up now and we'll see how they grow.

Cheers

[Framboise]

Ah so I am not the only Rural Science pupil!   Learned all sorts of useful stuff like the digestive system of chickens - cannot see where that will ever come in use though.

However, when I learnt grafting we used old bicycle inner tube cut into strips into which you slice a nick in the centre, poke through the graft, wrap the strip around the rootstock and secure tightly with a pin pushed through the two layers of rubber.  The rubber gives a little as the graft "takes" but of course is durable through rain and all sorts.  Hope it helps!!