Now the question is, how am I going to propagate it? I really like my plants to be on their own roots, so I have decided to use cuttings, despite the low take-rate. Several years ago there was a similar apple tree on this same farm that was on the brink of death that I wanted to propagate. I utilized the tree for a final project in my plant tissue culture course as an undergrad. I soon discovered that apple is unsuitable for this method due to its pubescence on leaves and stems, which makes it difficult to sterilize in the laboratory. Pretty much the bacteria and fungus went wild in the growth media and I never did succeed in designing an adequate protocol.

If anybody would have some basic information (i.e. softwood vs hardwood, time of year, etc) on how to grow apples from cuttings I would greatly appreciate it as it would save me what will probably be a lot of failure and shorten the learning curve. I really want to keep this old cultivar alive and well (whatever it is) and if you tasted the apples from it I think you would as well. Thanks guys.

Oh, bury the whole union several inches under dirt with perhaps 2 or 3 inches of the scion under soil as well. That is what is going to root.

I did this technique this summer, only I let the apple grow a foot high, then I slipped a tin can (bottom cut out) over the tree and filled with dirt to give it something to root into. Same concept tho.

Personally, I would be happy with the rescued scion just growing on EMLA 7 rootstock! or M9.

This doesn't mean that it's grafted. It could be ether or.
Most apple trees at 3 feet trunk, you shouldn't be able to see the union.
You might have thought it was a union because of the bulging from something,
this could be of many reasons, like some sort of injury etc.

In order to tell, you have to get some bottom growth or suckers and compare to top growth, or get a DNA done.

You're still asking...
My idea of layering doesn't appeal to you?

Konrad

I ask about cuttings in particular because it is something of a pet project; I know how apples are propagated conventionally but I want to see if I can get cuttings to succeed as well. I probably will resort to grafting just to keep this germplasm alive, and maybe someday a DNA test wil be available to help me pin down the variety. Thank you for the advice and happy growing!

It may be that your expectations for advice were a little high. If you have advanced to a tissue culture course you probably already know much more than the vast majority of us here about how to propagate trees.

While there are a few professionals and commercial growers who contribute to this forum, most of us are backyard growers with only several or a dozen trees. Yes, there are some grafters and experimenters among us, but few of us have academic training in horticulture. I am probably one of the longer-serving hobby orchardists at 30 years and 70 trees, but I am by no means an expert on propagation. While you prefer to grow trees on their own roots, for me any tree that grows and produces well can do so on any roots at all, and I see only the disadvantages of growing apple trees on their own roots. That is why fruit scientists have been working on clonal roostocks for so many years. I must say that Konrad's suggestion of air-layering made sense to me to achieve your objective.

The next time your tree sets a good crop, pick some of the best examples and take them to a local orchardist with some experience. If you can identify the variety, you may find it was commonly grown commercially, and may in fact still be grown by some of us who favor heirloom apples. Old apple varieties usually disappear because they are not so good, and many of the best are still alive and kicking in hobby orchards.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Some old varieties like Northern Spy actually generate root primordia on the exposed bark, I used to think these growths were a kind of mysterious disease.

Other varieties have cells in there cambium that easily dedifferentiate into rooting tissue and can be grown from cuttings using conventional root hormone and misting techniques. This is a matter not within my direct experience but that can easily be researched, I'm speaking from distant memory of readings.

Harold Tukey states in his classic book "Dwarfed Fruit Trees" that most varieties are unable to generate root from above ground tissue and that the frequently repeated warning about planting dwarfing rootstock too deeply because the scion will root out is an exaggerated threat. I have seen entire commercial orchards (multiple cultivar) that were planted below the graft union on semi-dwarfing rootstock that suffered no excessive invigoration. Still, the majority of knowledgeable fruit growers write and talk of their concern about keeping dwarfing rootstock above the soil line and I still try to follow their advice(such is the power of the written word).

Basically you wrap a terminal bud with an opaque tube in late winter. Then when spring comes and dormancy breaks, the shoot growing from the bud is growing in darkness. Eventually the shoot grows out the other end of the tube, and this part grows normally. Then you gradually admit light to the bottom of the shoot, but always keep the bottom end of the shoot wrapped to keep it dark. For example, if your tube was originally 3 inches long, you wait until the shoot grows six inches long and then gradually lower the tube/wrapping so it's only covering the bottom 1 inch of the shoot.

You then cut off the whole shoot and treat it like any softwood cutting - I myself would apply rooting hormone to help rooting.

The author says that this method works so well because the bottom bleached or etioalted shoot, which had been excluded from light it's entire life, roots so readily, while the green parts of the shoot feed the growing cutting.

I have yet to try this method myself, but it sounds very useful, and I bet it'll work with almost any tree or bush.

There is also a similar method where they keep entire seedlings in the dark and make numerous cuttings as the seedling grows (or something like that - I know the plant needs light to grow - I think they use a sucker or something)

Posters have explained why they think propagating apples by rooting cuttings is impractical and unnecessary it sounds like pteroceltis was interested in doing it for his/her own personal gratification.

Most people don't want apples on full grown roots and for those who do it is very easy to grow a seedling and graft to it. So why would they bother trying this method?

It sounds like pteroceltis should try it along with whatever other experiments and let us know how it works while we remain skeptical, assuming it qualifies as "from cuttings" more than air layering does.

If I was considering trying this method, I would certainly be interested to know if anyone actually does it succesfully.

Remember that as simple as it is, this is a relatively new technique. It takes a while for new practices/ideas to catch on, even if they are very useful. Not to mention that most of the time grafting and the other propagation methods have been working just fine; there isn't much of a reason for most orchards/nurseries to change.

Your comment about conservative practices of commercial nurseries is true on the surface but in many universities people are attempting new propigation techniques for all manner of fruiting species and there is always some linkage between the universities and industry.

I recommend that you join NAFEX which I frequently suggest to all of you with a keen interest in fruit exploration. They have members involved in this kind of research as well as commercial growers that aren't so conservative that they won't investigate and use new technology.

The first three pictures are with the plastic the last one is without. I forgot that I did this, so the tape was on for over six months... probably much longer. I

~james

I appreciate your contribution and I wasn't trying to make you feel stupid so I could feel smart, at least I hope I wasn't! If I was call me the idiot.

No apologies necessary, I understood where you were coming from. I was being facetious when I said it was slightly more difficult.

Murky,

I have a large fig tree in the ground which is infested with RKN. I am trying to air-layer some of the larger limbs off the tree. Someone in the Fig Forum had some information about this method on their website, so I thought I'd try it.

I don't know that it of much value on plants that are easy to root (I probably won't do it again on a fig tree). It maybe, however, give a little bit of an edge on the harder to root trees.

If you root a cutting you will get all of the genetic characteristics of the variety (scion).

The root characteristics will be those of the variety as well. So if you are taking the cutting from a grafted tree you will get completely different root characteristics which will also affect the way the tree grows and behaves.

With most cultivated varieties I suspect that nobody knows how their roots perform because they have always been propagated by grafting.

In most cases one would presume they'd behave as "standard" but that is only a very general term. Its technically possible (although unlikely for any given one) that some of the cultivated varieties have genetics for dwarfing roots.

I have been reading The Grafter’s Handbook, and I when I read about a method for propagating shy-rooting stocks during construction, I thought about you. Basically you take a normal piece of scion and graft it directly to the roots of the rootstock. You place a band around this rootstock, and then plant it deeply in the soil. The band will eventually constrict the rootstock while the scion develops it’s own roots. Eventually the rootstock roots die and the scion lives on it’s own roots.

I suppose you could just take a normal young tree and tie the band just above the graft line, then plant it deep enough for the stem to grow it’s own roots.