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  • From: "Ernest Plutko" <ernestplutko@wiktel.com>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] No new growth
  • Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2011 13:17:51 -0600

Compost and mulch may not have adequate nutrients.

---- Original Message ----
From: david.maxwell@dal.ca
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: RE: [NAFEX] No new growth
Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2011 15:02:37 -0400

>I have been cutting scions for people who have requested grafting
>material, and have
>become aware of a phenomenon which I did not appreciate until now. I
>have a number of
>different varieties, grafted to Ottawa-3 rootstocks, most in 2003.
>Most of them are around 8
>ft. high; some are as much as 12 ft. Now, I have two observations,
>probably linked, (but you
>tell me!) 1) Trees of Gideon, Lady (pomme d'Api), and a variety
>collected from the front yard
>of a lady called Sandra, (and hence called "Sandra's Red") have all
>virtually ceased making
>any vegetative growth. There are masses of fruit spurs, but
>virtually nothing which I could cut
>for grafting. (One of my fellow afficionados rather rudely says it
>is because I "don't fertilize
>them", meaning chemical fertilizers. [I do use compost and heavy
>mulch].) But other trees of
>different varieties next to them have put on growth ranging anywhere
>from 6 to 18 inches,
>suggesting to me that it has more to do with the variety than the
>growing conditions. 2) I
>have 4 trees of St. Cecilia, ostensibly all on O-3. But one of them
>has grown to twice the size
>of the other 3. (They are all side-by-side) I suspect that the
>rootstock of this one was not in
>fact O-3. Of the 4 trees, the 3 smaller ones have very little new
>growth, (maybe 3-4"), but the
>big one is covered in masses of vegetative growth, easily 18" or
>more, all over and in all
>directions. (I spent half an hour pruning out all the extra growth,
>and ended up with a whole
>bag full of scion wood). My interpretation is that the dwarfing
>effect of the rootstock is
>promoting fruit spur development and suppressing vegetative growth.
>Is this reasonable? If I
>want to get propagating material, what can I do to trigger new
>growth? And, finally, the
>Gideon *never* put out much lateral growth, and I have ended up with
>a 12 ft. high trunk,
>covered in fruit spurs all the way up the trunk, and 2 spindly
>branches near the bottom. Is
>there any way to provoke it into making some branches now? (I can't
>even take budwood
>from higher up and bud it into the trunk to try to develop new
>branches, because there is no
>vegetative growth to bud from...)
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