North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[david liezen <chandos49@hotmail.com>]

I concur with Alan regarding seedling trees, at least apples. A few 
observations from someone quite new to apple husbandry:

1) While John Bunker has witnessed the advantage first hand finding rare 
cultivars among long-lived trees standing on their own roots, people like 
myself cannot make much use of a standard apple tree. I do not possess acres. 
My back yard, while large due to the placement of the derelict corner store 
in which I dwell, allows only so much space. It is being packed with 
semi-dwarf and dwarf trees. The single standard, Lady/Christmas/Pomme d'Api, 
will remain quite small naturally. Considering a giant, like Summer Rambour, 
would force the choice of that tree alone, if I were to opt for it as a 
standard.

2) In reading the Handbook on Grafting, I remember illustrations and text 
describing natural grafts of two individual trees of the same species found 
in the wild. It seems likely the initial notion of creating grafts came from 
direct observation.

3) Standard trees need not be merely seedlings, with the odds stacked against 
you. I just read yesterday of a heritage German cultivar noted for rooting 
easily from cuttings. (Don't remember which one; it is not the first I have 
encountered. At least two English varieties have that distinction.) Some day 
someone may ask me to try rooting a twig from one of the trees in my yard to 
produce a standard: rooting compound and proper conditions ought to yield a 
happy result.

4) Any differences of nutrient uptake due to choices in root stock seem 
likely to have less significance than soil available, climate and type of 
husbandry applied: organic, fertilized, sprayed, thinned crops and the like. 

Dave Liezen, E. WA, zone 6 where the first snowfall caught half the apples 
still dressed with leaves