A farmers tip for Spring: How to steal a tree. A how to guide to chea

[boyst]

Well, it is Spring time, again. It seems to come every year these days, I must be getting old. This past year I have been learning a new craft with my girlfriend called rooting trees. It is a common practice but most people either do not know about it or do not try. Well, I am starting this thread to encourage you to try. Trees are amazing, bushes are not bad, either - though, Pooj may disagree.

 

It started a few years ago when I was wondering what I would do with my grandpa's 40+ year old apple trees. There are some pear trees about that old beside them, too. The wood was going bad, amost dry rotting in some places. I had tried a lot of remedies but still have not had any fruit in 5-6 years now. Branches falling off, one tree just literally split and fell over, and another one is nearly completely hollow. I took a chain saw to them about 4 years ago, found each graft that I could identify of the four and cut it down to about 3-6" off the trunk. I used tar over any raw ends and any damaged places and let the tree recover as best it could. It has been two years now and there are sizeable branches growing now from the grafts.

 

It is important to identify the grafts of your tree before you do any pruning. Grafted trees may contain 4, 5, 6, or more varieties of fruit. I cannot find a good picture of what a mature graft looks like so I will try to get a picture of what I have on my trees. However, you can easily identify what is a graft and what is a natural limb of the rootstock. If you find a major limb from the tree you will notice it appears crusted and scarred at the base. The limb will be naturally trained upward in most cases. Once you find the grafted sections look for new growth on the smaller limbs, and cut sections of about 14" or more. The new growth will fresher appealing, more flexible and more pale. It will be easily identified at cutting, as well, because it will contain an outer green ring where the flesh is still immature. This is what you want to cut.

 

Once your selections are made you put the base of the limb in rooting hormone, or if you want to avoid the cost cinnamon works well, too. The cinnamon contains naturally rooting hormones. Place this in a vase of water, with no more then 1/4 of the limb submerged. Again, if you want to avoid the costs, beer bottles are what I am using. Every week trade water, redip the limb in the cinnamon or rooting hormone. After about 3 or 4 weeks you *should* have roots forming. You will be able to transplant in to a starting soil and pot.

 

It is a wonderful opportunity to preserve some of the trees you may have had in your past. Maybe your grandpa had apple trees, too! You can go to any orchard, break off a limb of nearly any tree, bush, or plant and get similar results. Of course, it could be considered theft if you do not seek permission, and even them some trees are patented. No one is going to realize what you are doing, though. People do not root trees anymore.

 

Now, if you are looking for creating your own orchard area and limited in land you have a few options. Many fruit trees, called fruit cocktails, now contain multiple fruits, such as plum, peach, nectarine, and apricot (http://tinyurl.com/cv94rx4). If you remove the limb beneath the graft you will eliminate that species of plant from the rootstock used. You can also find columnar trees if you live in a small area (http://tinyurl.com/c8fqro7). It is ideally too late to add trees to your yard, regardless what the 20 year at Lowes tells you. Most trees should be in the ground by February. However, with propper care you can introduce a new tree any time of year.

 

And for anyone unsure of how to prune a good fruit tree, you have to start young. Any limb falling beneath a 15° is usually a good canidate to be removed. Do this in the dormant season, typically January-February.

 

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. If you are embarassed to admit you have a green thumb - PM me. What answers I cannot get you my girlfriend will probably know. What answers the two of us cannot get, we will ask Beerball or a professional. I will post pictures of the process if there is enough interest.

Edited April 7, 2013 by jboyst62

[Just Jack]

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. If you are embarassed to admit you have a green thumb - PM me. What answers I cannot get you my girlfriend will probably know. What answers the two of us cannot get, we will ask Beerball (and then do the opposite) or a professional. I will post pictures of the process if there is enough interest.

fixed