North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Ernest Plutko" <ernestplutko@wiktel.com>]

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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