Top Home

In the course of this project we have spoken to a number of leading fruit tree experts, these include Liz Copas, John Worle, John Moss, Kenelm and Michael Johnson, Jim Franklin, Rob Uren, Peter Mitchell, Gillian Bulmer and Chris Fairs. Their recordings are all in the Cider Museum archive and can be heard on request. The one below was given by Nicholas Dunn of Burrington Court, Tenbury Wells and was chosen as we have accompanying photographs and because Nick has a talent for presenting information clearly, logically and in an interesting way. We could not improve on his 'first take'. He would be the first to say though that there is far more to it than he has had the time to tell us here. For example he has not had talked about seedling stocks that were used before 1960. If you do want to know more about growing trees, you should search the database and listen to our other recordings.

Root Stocks

My business if a family business that grows fruit trees for growers and other nurseries and I am going to explain the process of growing trees in a nursery and what is involved. First of all we are looking at root stocks. Now root stocks are a very important element of the tree and we have to decide which fruit stock we will grow our tree on in the orchard. The cider industry in particular, growers request certain medium to vigorous root stocks for trees to grow on so these are planted as free standing trees in the orchard. The trees that we supply them with are made up of two parts, the root stock itself and then the variety that’s worked grafted or budded which well look at later on. It’s a two part tree.

Why have root stocks

All trees are propagated vegetatively. If they were to be produced from seed they would not the same varieties, so we have to propagate vegetatively to get trees to type. The root stock was originally bred as a variety in its own right, all the different root stocks, because the fruit industry realised they needed size control on the tree, resistance to disease, the ability for the root stock to influence the crop of the tree, so therefore high yield and also early yield and good fruit size. So all those characteristics are in the root stock which influences the tree, so they are very very good reasons for having the root stock in the first place, plus it allows us to propagate the fruit vegetatively.

Propagating root stocks; Year 1

We've got a range of root stocks for the cider industry. 106 is probably the most popular, it is a medium to vigorous rootstock, it is resistant to woolly aphid disease and it is very high yielding, so it produces good crops early in the life of the orchard. The root stocks have themselves to be propagated, again vegetatively, we do this on layer beds, you will see here the layer bed itself, this is annual growth from the stool which is in ground. They are probably 2 to 3 foot in length but they are graded by calliper, just above ground level so when we sell them to other nurseries they are usually 7 to 9 or 9 to 11 mm in girth, that’s how they are graded. These are one year layers, we will look at two years later on, and the annual growth is two to three foot, and about midsummer, the mid to end of June we begin to earth the base of the stool, to encourage rooting. This is a mixture of mostly sawdust, white fine sawdust and some soil. This influences the rooting of the root stock, so when its cut off at ground level again in December we have root stocks with roots. That is the whole purpose of layers or stooling is to put roots on the end of the root system. (it looks rather like a potato row but with very much taller, straighter growth). So come December this will be cut off and harvested. The root stocks will go into cold store and get graded, and then prepared for spring planting.

Propagating root stocks; Year 2 – transplanting Top of Page

This is year two in the production of the tree in the nursery, and again we are looking at root stocks, but very often the majority of the layers which we discussed have to be transplanted for a further year to increase their size prior to being transplanted again to increase their size. So this is the first area where we’ve got bedded stocks which are planted about 25,000 to the acre something like that and all that has happened is that we have increased the girth so they are in a better condition for the budding process which happens next year. They are planted about three to six inches apart, depending on the size. They are planted wider apart if they are very small, then they don’t have so much competition between them, so what we would like to think is that they will reach that depending on their original size from off the stool together with their planting distance, which is variable, will bring them all out about the same size at the end of the year. These are 106 and they are two year transplanted, so they are now two year root stocks. Just before they were transplanted they were chopped off, so they don’t get too leggy, and that again helps them to produce an extra bit of root. If you prune the tops back before planting you will get a better root system. The root system is actually improved. It is a much tougher root system, and it is more resilient root stock. Our customers have a choice of one year layers or two year transplanted stock. The one year layer is cheaper by about 5p to 6p.

Propagating root stocks; Year 3 - Budding Top of Page

We are now in Year 3 into the production of maiden tree for orchard planting and we are standing by the lined out root stocks which have been planted for a second time. They were planted in spring in April and we are now standing here in the end of August just after the budding process. I am now ready to give you a demonstration of the budding method. Just before that a little word about soil. The reason the nursery is in this position is because the land is very good. It is upper grade 2, or grade 1 soil, we happen to be on red sandstone, it is in the Teme Valley, the soil is very good, its in an alluvial plain, and it produces a very good root system. The root stocks are line out at metre spaces between rows, about 8 to 10 inches apart, and around 10,000 to the acre. They are budded in Year 3 for the process of growing into lanes the following year. Now the budding process itself, we have seen how we have cut the bud off the bud stick which is selected from special mother trees, placed on root stock with cambial contact and then tied in with polythene for five weeks and during that time the bud calluses into the root stock and the tape is then removed and the following spring the root stock is cut away right down to the bud. And the next spring the bud will grow into the main tree. The callus is tissue, cells that are repairing themselves, to join the two living parts together. You’ve got to remember that they are very compatible, we are budding apples onto apples, pears onto pear root stocks and so on. The other thing that is worth mentioning the preparation of the soil for nursery work we do sterilise the land against what we call ‘replant’ disease, for trees that grow very vigorously. We generally do this for rosacea genera which include sorbus, mountain ash, apples, pears and to some extent some of the prunus which also suffer from the same problem. We do plant them altogether. They all suffer from the same difficulties.

Propagating root stocks; Year 4 – the maiden tree Top of Page

Here we are standing in Year 4 where the maiden tree has actually grown a year later from budding and you will see that the point where the variety has grown out of the rootstock where we cut it down in the spring. And you will see that there is three to four maybe five foot growth of the tree by early September and this is whats happened in the fourth year to produce a maiden tree. During the period of growing in the spring and summer we have to remove competition, competing suckers from the root stock, these are buds from the rootstock, so they don’t compete with the variety that has been budded, these are all removed so you don’t see them now, but it does enable the tree to grow without any competition and straight as well. It is a labour intense industry, we produce about 350,000 field grown trees a year by this method and we’ve got a staff of about 20 for the field production. We do all our own budding, grafting, all the skilled work and then of course they have to lift the trees out and deliver them to customers in the winter. The shapes depend on varietal differences in growth, some varieties will feather very well, they produce side branches. These are helpful to the grower for his first branches in the orchard. Unfortunately some varieties don’t produce feathers, they tend to act more like whips, it means the grower has to be patient. The grower will generally cut the lead shoots. Traditionally the main tree would always be cut back to about three foot, and this would probably happen with a whip or modern feathered variety, but sometimes the grower can afford to leave them undisturbed them if they are well fed, thick roots will produce a nice balanced tree for good fruit production.

Supporting the root stock Top of Page

The other important thing to mention is that whilst the tree is growing in the spring we cane it during the summer for support this keeps the tree straight and unhindered by blustery weather where it can actually get blown off. We usually use plastic ties from a special tying machine. Its got a mouth piece, you put it round and its got a staple. (John Moss adds: always put the stake on the side of the prevailing wind, or the tree will snap off).

The mother stock Top of Page

As a nursery it is very important for us to propagate from healthy trees, that are true to type. This is a responsibility of ours, we are standing here in our mother tree plantation where we have an example of a cider variety, Somerset Red Streak, where we’ll be collecting bud wood and graft wood for propagating purposes as has already been explained. There are several principles here that are very important. Firstly trueness to type, because this tree is fruiting and we can recognise the variety we are happy to trueness to type and therefore we can propagate from it. Secondly its health status, this is not just pest and disease but also from the virus point of view, we like to propagate if we can from virus free or virus tested material. This has been produced in the past by research stations, and then supplied to the nurseries and then we propagate from only clean stock. Growers expect nurseries to supply them with not only quality trees but healthy trees. (NB see Liz Copas recording for how to grow virus free stock). It is an interesting subject as to how it is done. The next thing is the management of mother stock, one of the important things is to gather vigorous material for budding and grafting and this requires fairly heavy pruning on the mother stock. So every winter we prune the trees back quite hard and all the growth we see here is all vigorous one year growth. If we hadn’t pruned it we would produce less vigorous growth. The length is not that significant although if the variety is vigorous. This variety is two to three feet long, some varieties wont produce that. The most important thing is juvenile vigour that produces good bud wood. My grandfather used to say meaty eyes for meaty maidens, in other words referring to good eyes (i.e. buds) make good trees the following year.

The Bloody Ploughman Top of Page

This particular variety which is called Bloody Ploughman is a cider variety, I don’t think it is used very much for cider these days, it possibly produces an inferior cider though you’d have to ask a cider maker for that. Certainly we get little request for it, but it is quite a novelty apple and one with an interesting story. This happened some centuries ago, the person it was named after was a farmworker. He was caught stealing apples from his boss, and was subsequently despatched, in the way that people were treated in those days for stealing. From his grave arose an apple seedling which produced blood red apples, so they called in Bloody Ploughman.

Grafting Top of Page

The other nursery propagation technique similar to budding and used for the same reason is what we call grafting. This is just another technique of carpentry really to produce root stock and variety together, in some unusual circumstances growers may wish to change variety actually in the orchard in what we call top working technique. Dormant wood is cut up into short pieces of three or four buds, we then make a whip and tongue graft onto the tree and this technique as illustrated is often used in nurseries, not so much these days for top working for standard trees. Its important again to get the cambium contact. There is a natural cambial layer just underneath the bark and when you are using one year shoots this is very evident, you can see it. You have got to match the cambian of the rootstock and the variety or the two varieties together otherwise you wont get a good take.

The cambial is where there is living tissue, the living part is always just under the bark itself. That is where the minerals move up and down and the water and so on, it is the only living part of the shoot, that is what we call the cambial layer.

Propagation skills Top of Page

A good budder and grafter has to be fairly precise, you have to have a certain amount of strength but that is not the key to it. You’ve got to have control. Whenever we teach young people to graft and bud, its generally practice makes perfect. We start them on the easier subjects. A lot of woods have different hardness to them though they are living woods so they are softer than a carpenters wood which is a dead material. This is live there is sap in it and it is fairly soft, and we would start young people on cherries which is like butter and then they would progress to harder woods like apples and pears in particular which are quite hard, they are the hardest of trees.

Grafting or budding, once you have the technique is not that difficult, it is for all people. We have good nursery women on our nursery, they don’t do grafting and budding but probably because we have never asked them to try. The process of tying which is very skilful, if you saw a team working you would be surprised how very quick it is, and that is the skill, is to do it quickly. Someone who is not well practiced can graft and bud, I have taught people in a few hours how to do this, and the results have been pretty good, but the skill like any skill is the amount you can get done in a day and that makes you a skilful operator. The speed helps, once you are fluid in your motions and you are doing cuts that are all in one flow rather than chipping away at it, it is generally flatter, smoother, flatter, once that is started, like any skilful job it goes better. On a normal working day of 8 to 9 hours in the summer a budder and tier would put on, on average, between two to three thousand buds a day. They work in pairs, a budder and a tier. Generally they don’t change over, we have to be efficient in our working practice, we have skilled knifers and younger, less experienced staff, apprentices would start tieing. Once the understand the job they would progress to a knife after a few years. With grafting it would probably be twice the time, that may explain why we do mostly budding. Because it is quicker, you use less material, it is more efficient. Where we’ve got budding failures, which can happen, you can always put a graft on and you will guarantee, certainly with apples, virtually 100% take. Whereas the budding take can be anything between 90% and 100%, depending on the year, the weather and so on.

If you are looking at the cosmetics of the tree, its appearance, we would all prefer a budded tree because it has a much smoother stem as a finished tree, a graft tends to have a kink in it.

It is vital that the union between the rootstock and variety remains clear of ground level. It the union goes below soil you get what we call ‘syon’ rooting. Once it starts rooting on its own, it negates the effect of the rootstock. The rootstock is there to provide anchorage, influence on crop, disease resistance, and everything, once the variety is allowed to root, it negates the advantages of the rootstock. It wouldn’t stop it cropping, its crop would be more biannual, smaller crop, less disease resistant.