Couple of apple questions ! (flowering group + rootstock)

Just a thought too.. they could be grown as cordons, but if they were, and angled they'd be out of sun due to the fence shade (looking from the house, the fence that I'm on about is on the right hand side (west)) - my garden is pretty much south facing.. So from around 2/3 I'd guess they sun would be off them.. in which case early ripening ones should be preferred I presume?

Chris, have you thought about espaliers?

I was just looking at some on a website about pruning / training into espailers, thanks rusty.. (just ordered that old fruit expert book too - my dad has the collection but knowing him it'd be difficult to "borrow" them (blood, stone?).

I'd have the same issue with the espailer though - no sunlight on them after whenever the sun passes past the fence.

They have some at my local garden centre, I may pop there after work and move them (I often do this, heh) and put potted plants in front of it to see how it'd look. I do have some tall flowering plants in mind that I'd like dotted around them, so not sure how they'd work (or, for that matter the cordons thinkng about it!)

I need a bigger garden, grr!

I would be inclined to go for rootstock M26 for average vigour varieties, but you could consider rootstock M9 for the more vigorous varieties. M27 may well be simply too slow-growing.

With clever choice of varieties, you can achieve different things, such as:

1.
Varieties which grow very quickly when young, but after a few years, direct all energy into fruit and virtually stop getting any larger.

2.
Varieties which are fast growing and also slow to start fruiting. These can be useful on very dwarf rootstock to prevent "runt out".

3.
Varieties which grow slowly, but just keep growing slowly-but-steadily all their life (at a slight expense in fruit yield), so that they can actually reach a very large size if not pruned due to many years of accu mulated growth. Tip bearers also have this tendency.

4.
Varieties which rush to fruit heavily in year two or year three 9most modern varieties do this). These easily "runt out" and should not be used on dwarf roots unless the soil is excellent.

5.
Varieties which easily form side branches and have a compact habit. These are easily kept small, even when on quite strong rootstocks.

It is my belief that final tree size is almost as much to do with the degree of side branching (induced by properly-carried-out winter pruning) as it is with the variety or rootstock vigour.
Good pruning technique encourages greater branching and although winter-pruned trees grow rapidly and don't fruit, they also reach mature size and full cropping sooner because the sheer number of branch junctions (called "nodes" or "internodes") slow the sapflow in much the same way as long straight motorways speed traffic flow, while complex city-centre side-roads slow the traffic flow.

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Regarding pollination:

Generally speaking, the closer the flowering times, the better the pollination. This, of course, can be ruined if your chosen varieties are related, as they have a good chance of refusing to accept pollen from a related tree (or from itself). For example: Cox's Orange Pippin's pollen is completely incompatible with its offspring Kidd's Orange Red (and vice-versa), despite them being in adjacent flowering groups. There are many examples of this.
Additionally, I find that in my climate, rootstock MM106 advances flowering by one group compared to M26, while M26 advances flowering by one group compared to M9, therefore MM106 can be two flower groups earlier than the same variety on M26.
It is also possible that your pollinator tree goes biennial, which could adversely affect the tree it is supposed to fertilise.

Having said all that: I would not worry too much about pollination because other apple trees nearby may act as pollinators.

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Put up a list of varieties which you've shortlisted and I'll comment if I can think of problems with them in terms of vigour-matching, disease resistance, pollination partners etc.

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edit:
The rootstock's strength will be a significant factor in the lifespan and ruggedness of the tree.
I prefer the idea of a very strong rootstock coupled with a slower-growing variety. This gives a virtually indestructible foundation, which can easily fuel the demands of the slow-growing variety on top. Some commercial nurseries use MM111 as the lower roots and graft M9 as the upper roots and lower trunk, with the desired fruit type on top.
The result is powerful roots underground (MM111 roots grow like lightning and fully establish within a matter of weeks), but the M9 "inter-stem" slows sapflow between the deep roots and the fruiting variety to reduce the vigour above-ground to a controllable level.
The result: sweet little trees that are hard as nails.

(these are the kind of wonders that I could churn out, if only people realised their potential)

From my own growing experiences, I would recommend (F is the flowering date; dates within -4 to +3 make adequate pollinators for your chosen variety, while -2 to +1 are excellent pollinators but run the risk of all trees being caught by the same frost):

Brownlees Russet, F9, part-self-fertile (beautiful candyfloss pink blossom which does not fade to white), good all-round resistance, compact, upright, heavily-spurred, precocious and slower-growing-than-average.

Egremont Russet, F7, frost resistant blossom, part-self-fertile, good all-round resistance, compact, upright, heavily-spurred, precocious, slower-growing-than-average.

Grenadier, F11, part-self-fertile, excellent pollinator, good all-round resistance, compact, slower-growing-than-average.

Reverend Wilks, F7, part-self-fertile, good all-round resistance, very slow growing.

I was looking at Egremont Russet primarily. I have a red windsor at the moment, from those coronet chaps I was going on about before. It's fruiting in it's first year, extremely dwarfing - in a pot. They were cheap enough to get me thinking 2 or 3 of them along the fence would be good... if they exhausted themselves after a couple of years then it's not too much money gone. False economy though, thinking about it.

The one thing I don't want to do is invest heavily in fruit trees, as I anticipate we'll be moving from here in around 10 years time.

Thank you for the replies - I do have drains in my garden, not sure how deep they are so not sure I'd want to risk extremely vigourous roots? Could they go through drains? (I had a fir tree which did this)

Don't follow your second post about the flowering dates - so will digest it again in the morning

The Lower root graft with a mid section sounds cool, I didn't think things like that were done. You should definitely get setup!

Would the flowers around the base cause an issue? I'd be leaving some annuals to self-seed, a few bulbs and what not. I'm guessing on M26+ perhaps not, but M9?

My neighbour has a bramley, and some other apple that I'm not sure of.

The local type I'd probably choose is either one from 3 miles down the road (discovered there apparently), or one from monmouthshire, which is pretty much the same climate. I've emailed the place for group and vigour information.

Waffling a bit now - going to hit the sack, will re-read again in the morning. Thank you!

Apple roots are not likely to cause much trouble. Pears and cherries are more damaging.
Building guidelines for subsidence due to fruit trees absorbing water suggest that apple roots spread only slighty beyond the canopy, whereas pears and cherries spread twice as far as the canopy.
Apple roots are also fairly sparse, so it'd be a lucky chance to hit a pipe, but even if a root did, the physical barrier and reduced nutrients would deter root growth.

Generally speaking, I would say that an apple trees roots would be no more than one-quarter the thickness of the trunk at the thickest point where the root attaches to the base of the trunk, but those roots get rapidly thinner the further from the trunk.

Drains and pipes will usually be about 18 inches below the surface in my area. Most tree roots will be in the topsoil (which is often shallower than 18 inches). Only a few roots will go deeper, into poorer soil - mostly for anchorage and emergency water supply.

I would much prefer M26. It is not difficult to keep small and has enough vigour to take care of itself in average soil.
You'll probably also find it much easier to locate M26 trees than M9 trees.

If you're not going to be there for long, I'd go for a cheap "discount" store trees on MM106 for £5-10 each, so that they actually get up to size and cropping heavily before you leave. Otherwise I fear you are simply creating a fruit garden for the next owner and you'll see little reward for your efforts in the meantime.
Once the MM106's get going, switch to hard summer pruning of the new growth and they'll soon obey their master and give good yields.

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Bramley and other triploids are not suitable for pollinating other trees because they have a low viable pollen count; most pollen grains from triploids are defective.

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When I spoke of pollination:

The numbers given are the "official" flowering dates in May, for trees on M9 rootstock, at the National Fruit Collection.
A tree with "F7" has an average "full flower" date of 7th May in their soil, climate and on M9.
Other soils, climates and rootstocks can change this. It seems as if flowering is generally earlier in recent years. It also seems that M9 slightly delays flowering, but may slightly bring forward ripening time and may improve fruit quality.
A tree with "F7" would be reasonably well pollinated by another tree flowering up to four days in advance or up to three days after ("F3" to "F10"). If the flowering date is between two days earlier to one day after, pollination should be excellent ("F5" to "F8").
The pollination groups attempt to simplify this by having each "group" cover a spread of about four days (the optimum duration of flower and pollen fertility).
For example: group C covers 8th to 11th May. Any tree in group C would be an excellent pollinator for another in group C because all group C flower within 3 days of each other. A group C would be a reasonable (but not always reliable) pollinator of a group B (4-7 May) or group D (12-15 May).

Apples use a self-recognition system to detect pollen from the same variety, or from closely related varieties. "Self" pollen, or closely related pollen is not easily able to fertilise, although if a tree produces vast amounts of pollen, it can literaly overwhelm its ability to prevent self-fertilisation (and therefore is part-self-fertile).

Fruit quality is best when fruit is pollinated by a different and unrelated variety. Self-pollinated fruits are often lower quality and more likely to be dropped prematurely.

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Ooh, I see now thanks, FB.

So do you think something on an M26 wouldn't fruit well before 10 years? I'm saying 10 years, it may be more, may be less..

The cheap discount stores, by the likes of lidl? I do have 6 of those in pots (not sure which is which now though as the labels blew off). I'd planned on banging them in the allotment come the dorment season. I think there's 2/3 apples, a pear, plum and a cherry. One's died, the others have leafed up well... thety're generally MM106? ouch

I didn't realise the roots were so shallow.. I guess fromt he size of the apple, cherry, pear and plum my dad took down with my help I imagined them to be massive tap roots etc!

Food for thought though. I'll have another look over the types today, thank you again.

The old seedling-type apple rootstocks had massive taproots. Nowadays, the "cloned" rootstocks are produced by layering or cutting, so tend to have a more sideways root system and can be less resilient than the seedlings with their big taproot as a direct connection to deep-down water and as a reserve for nutrients. Taproots on apple seedlings really do look like baby parsnips (I call them apple carrots).

A bare-root maiden would require most of that ten years to establish and prune to shape. MM106 is widely available as 2-3 year olds with good branching and can be had from lidl or aldi for a few quid each. That's what I'd go for. Instant effect without too much investment.
If you decide to stay where you are, you can always drop me a message and I'll post you some scion wood for re-grafting. Commercial orchards will sometimes cut back a tree to the main branches and graft the tips with a different variety, according to market demand. They may do this a few times during the life of a tree - and the tree simply re-grows after its major surgery.
If you think that you might follow the re-grafting approach, I suggest that you look at canker-resistant framework variety, so that it can remain in place for many years without getting diseased.

Had a reply from the chap:

This was me querying about that apple that was rescued (bardsey island) and two trees local to me. The only thing that bothers me about the lidl/aldi ones is the fact that they're so common (cultivars) and may not be suited to my region (canker?).

Thank you for the offer of the wood - I'd love to take you up on it, perhaps in a few years time

May bang the apples (when I can figure out which trees are apple ) in the ground and see how they grow for a year. None flowered this year, which I'm guessing is due to them being kept in the dark for so long, and then planted in pots - not establishing?

Although the lidl/aldi trees will be common varieties, it is also possible that your local varieties may have been widely grown in your area and a few old trees remain as a disease reservoir.
I can grow James Grieve apples without any scab (and I can see the little scab-resistance marks on the leaves where it fights-off my local scab strains), but being a Scottish apple, the Scots find James Grieve to be prone to scab, probably because there's a reservoir of disease up there.

Unpruned may reach 15ft. That may be true, but will depend on soil and the variety.
Well-cared-for and properly-pruned trees don't get anywhere near as big as unpruned trees.

Someone not far from me has an old, seedling-rootstocked Bramley.
It has clearly been well-maintained and measures only about 12-13ft wide and about 9-10ft high.
Other old, unpruned Bramleys in this area are more like 15-18ft wide and 15-18ft high.

The well-maintained tree produces excellent crops and is a beautiful specimen - I very much envy the owner!
The untended trees produce only light and often biennial crops and have grown rather untidy - I would not want to even start trying to get them back into shape!

I have a competition with my parents-in-law. I bet that my 6ft Fiesta MM106 could outcrop their 15ft Lambourne M2. It looks like my little bush is going to put their big old tree to shame.

It ain't what you've got, it's what you do with it that counts!

So....however big it might get if unpruned, remember that a well-pruned specimen can be kept at half that size.

lol

Fair points. I've ordered the fruit expert book to have something to refer to, and have been looking at pruning websites/articles recently so we'll see how we get on. I'll go with these cheapos for now, if they establish quickly, I'll go for some local jobbies!

Thanks again!

Various options for reducing vigour and improving cropping:

Summer pruning
Bark ringing
Root pruning
Growing plants or grass to compete with the apples
Reduced feeding and watering
Encouraging/training branches to be less upright
Encouraging short distances between side branches