Growing Dwarf Fruit Trees

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PHOTO: FOTOLIA/DAVIDEIN
To produce a fruiting tree, a small branch of fruiting wood (scion) is cut and grafted—bound cambium layer to cambium layer—to a rootstock of a robust-growing seedling.

Past and present information on the grafting process when growing dwarf fruit trees.

Growing Dwarf Fruit Trees

Fruit trees don’t grow true from seed, as you’ve discovered if you’ve ever sampled fruit from the seedling apple trees that sprout from bird or deer-scattered apple seeds in most old woods in North American farm country. The Golden Delicious apples or Montmorency cherries we enjoy today grow from fruiting wood taken from natural “sports”–genetic anomalies that jes’ happened, often occurring on a single branch of a conventional tree, as did the original Golden Delicious on a tree in West Virginia back in the teens. Others are the work of hybridizers.

To produce a fruiting tree, a small branch of fruiting wood (scion) is cut and grafted–bound cambium layer to cambium layer–to a rootstock of a robust-growing seedling. Some propagators graft large stems to whole roots; others graft slips–slivers–of fruiting and rooting stock. The grafted tree is grown in a nursery for a year or more, till large enough to be dug and sold for replanting.

Years ago, experimenters like Luther Burbank and Bill Cahill discovered that when top-quality fruiting wood from trees that lacked high vigor was grafted to the roots of different but related plant species with a more vigorous growth habit, the union produced trees that combined the best characteristics of both parents. Most fruit trees are members of the same (rose) plant family, so they inter-graft readily.

  • Published on Oct 1, 1996
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