From: "William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Dwarf Plum Rootstock
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:17:33 -0600
But the best option, in my opinion, is to prune to obtain the size of
tree you want. Just graft/bud or buy your tree on the common widely
available rootstocks and then prune to obtain the tree size you want.
I keep hearing this, Richard, and I'm trying to do that myself, but my
young plums are so vigorous that it hasn't been working out very well.
It's really been a struggle. Admittedly, I'm just learning, but even
with summer pruning, I'm not having much luck keeping them small.
Of course, the late freeze last spring meant no fruit during the season,
so maybe they were more vigorous than usual. But I just stick a tree in
the ground and it seems to want to become a redwood. :-)
OK, slight exaggeration, perhaps. And I'm beginning to suspect that I
planted my plums on top of where an old outhouse used to be. But I'm
certainly wishing I'd found dwarfing rootstock when I bought these. I
figured plums were small trees, anyway, and that I could prune them to
keep them small, just as you say, but I'm finding that to be easier said
than done.
Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)
--
This is like deja vu all over again. - Yogi Berra