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["Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

If you do produce some plants from root cuttings you should know that they will be juvenile.  That is, when a seed grows the plant goes through a juvenile phase, then becomes mature and develops into the bearing phase.  In pears and some apples the juvenile phase is frequently characterized by little short thorn-like spurs on the twigs and small limbs.  As the tree matures, these disappear.  Shoots from roots almost always come out juvenile.
Here's the kicker.   If you propagate from the mature wood, the new tree will be all mature in characteristics.  But if you propagate from juvenile wood, the new tree has to grow through the juvenile phase and mature just like a seedling.  Also, if you cut off a seedling to force sprouts from below the area where it went from juvenile to mature as it grew, the sprouts will be juvenile.
Juvenile shoots have one big advantage in that in many plants they will root more readily than shoots from the adult portion of the tree.  So if you use root shoots and get a juvenile type tree, you might be able to root cuttings of it much more readily than if you took shoots off the top of the old tree.
-Lon Rombough
Grapes, writing, consulting, my book, The Grape Grower, at http://www.bunchgrapes.com  Winner of the Garden Writers Association "Best Talent in Writing" award for 2003. 
For even more grape lessons, go to  http://www.grapeschool.com
For growing supplies and more;  http://www.grapegrowersolutions.com

On Jan 23, 2007, at 8:26 AM, tanis cuff wrote:

Per the questions asking what my uses would be for the root-cuttings, or, 
what I'm trying to achieve and whether roots is the best way.  I was hoping 
to decide that once I learned about root-cutting propagation.  The info I 
found via internet searches seemed contradictory, and hidden in big 
documents which took forever to download.

Its something I'd never bothered with because I didn't have a use for it, 
but now I'm possibly needing to prove at least one tree is indeed a 
chance-seedling on its own roots.

Also, I'm beginning evaluations of an apple tree which has an impressive 
root characteristic, and wondering if root-cuttings is the best way to start 
a few-to-several little trees for testing in other sites.  This project is 
complicated by the tree being owned by someone else, so I want to present 
the owner with the best & most info I can about all the options for 
propagating/ increasing and eventually distributing this possibly helpful 
new rootstock.