Kitchen Garden Forum

I am often tempted to buy apple trees from Supermarkets late in the season and I just can't resist them when priced at £4.99. Over the years I have many such trees and wonder what root stocks they are on. They must be end of season stock that are supplied to Supermarkets to get rid of but are never marked with their rootstock, does anyone know what rootstocks they are on?

Thanks

Barney

I don't know but I picked 51kg of Granny Smith off a tree that cost me £1, it's not small but I can just pick it with a step ladder.

Interesting you say that Geoff, because I assumed that they would be on a dwarfing rootstock since they are sold for garden planting but all of mine have grown very vigorously and I now suspect that they are on a standard tree stock, M25 or MM111. Unfortunately I have planted them all too close together (thinking they were on a dwarf rootstock) and I think I will have to move some of them. Perhaps they are on a MM106 and I have just let them get too large.

Barney

Now that's a good question, Barney, I would say it is which ever one is cheapest but, I wouldn't know which one that would be.

I bought my trees from a nurse that were supposed to be on dwarf rootstock but 2 of them defiantly aren't & are too close together now so I will just have to be ruthless with the pruning, especially the leader. .

If you prune them hard you will get lots of new shoots (water shoots) from around the cut, so just keep the best as the new leader and cut all the others off....unless you need more than one shoot, then just keep the desired amount...

I've found that most fruit trees grow bigger than you expect even on dwarf root stocks. At least they are usually reachable at 12 ft and kept in check with pruning. When I was young all our fruit trees were on their own roots and grew huge. Dad used to have me climbing up the long pole ladder to pick them while he held the ladder. I've given up climbing and use a long handled fruit picker, although find I don't have much control of it when it's fully extended and it's no use for cherries and plums.