Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Under- and over-vigour

Collapse

X
Collapse
 
  • Page of 1
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
Previous template Next
  • #1

    Under- and over-vigour

    Last winter I planted a new pear and a new apple in the north east and north west corners of my garden. The north east corner is at the intersection of a hawthorn and leylandii hedge, and the northwest corner is where the same hawthorn hedge meets with a small forest of sumachs that the neighbours have let cover at least half their garden.

    Given the competition from surrounding plants I decided to err on the side of vigour, maybe too much, and got a Cockle Pippin on M25 and a Beurre Sterckmans on Pyrodwarf. But so far I've had very different results - the Cockle Pippin has shrugged off transplantation and competition from the leylandii and grown from 1.3 to 2.4m in its first year, almost entirely straight up, whereas the Beurre Sterckmans hasn't really grown at all (there's literally 2 or 3 cm of new growth).

    I picked the two of them since they're supposed to have an upright habit and be late fruiting, and I wanted them to clear the top of the hedges before branching out too much. Cockle Pippin is also supposed to be relatively low vigour. See below for descriptions from Joan Morgan's excellent books:

    The New Trees Are In! | Have Some Pi

    But neither is a common variety anymore, so it's hard to confirm that. I think the only other person I know has grown Cockle Pippin is FB, as mentioned in this excellent thread:

    http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ays_24437.html

    Since that thread is now closed and I can't ask the question there, can FB or anyone else with experience of these rootstocks and varieties tell me:

    1. I've read that pears on Pyrodwarf often don't do much in their first year. Has anyone else found this?

    2. Does Cockle Pippin keep an upright habit as it matures? In its second year (planted as a 1 year maiden) mine has shown little interest in branching, which I encouraged by not pruning the leader, and the only branch it has grown is also very strongly vertical. This could partly be due to shading from the east, although there is no shade to the south and west.

    If m25 can shrug off growing between two mature hedges I don't mind it hitting 5 or 6m tall, but I'm more concerned with the spread and particularly the spread in the first 2 - 3m. To be honest I was expecting being in the rootzone of a lot of other trees to reduce its vigour at least slightly compared to the usual m25 size.
    Last edited by chrisdb; 09-10-2016, 08:07 PM.
    Tags: None
  • #2
    1. Not sure whether Pyrodwarf is slower to establish. Some rootstocks are, though, which makes them appear less vigorous in official trials. In its first year or two Pyrodwarf seems to be a bit less vigorous than seedling pear but PD is still a fairly vigorous rootstock.

    The poor growth of the pear could be one of many reasons, including how healthy the mother tree which the graft was taken from. Pears prefer a sheltered, warm, sunny location. Is it too shady?

    2. Even if your Cockle Pippin starts changing shape, you can prune it. Most old apple trees in peoples gardens tend towards upright because they remove the lower branches that get in the way.
    When winter pruned, most trees respond with some strong upright shoots.
    .

    Comment

    • #3
      Originally posted by FB. View Post
      1. Not sure whether Pyrodwarf is slower to establish. Some rootstocks are, though, which makes them appear less vigorous in official trials. In its first year or two Pyrodwarf seems to be a bit less vigorous than seedling pear but PD is still a fairly vigorous rootstock.

      The poor growth of the pear could be one of many reasons, including how healthy the mother tree which the graft was taken from. Pears prefer a sheltered, warm, sunny location. Is it too shady?

      2. Even if your Cockle Pippin starts changing shape, you can prune it. Most old apple trees in peoples gardens tend towards upright because they remove the lower branches that get in the way.
      When winter pruned, most trees respond with some strong upright shoots.
      I think what I was remembering regarding Pyrodwarf was this:

      Rootstocks for Pear trees

      PyroDwarf is a good alternative to seedling rootstocks, as it produces large attractive trees which nevertheless start bearing quite young, usually after 3-4 years. Being of Pyrus origin, there are no graft incompatibility issues with this rootstock. It can sometimes seem a bit slow to establish, so do not worry if growth seems slow in the first year after planting (as long as there is at least some growth) because it will probably get going in the second season.
      It's not in that shaded a position. There are trees / hedges to the north east and north west, but there's about 120 degrees open directly south. That means sun for at least several hours around mid-day all year round. The hedge to the north east is kept at about 2m so after it growsa bit mode the only shading will be to the north west.

      You said in a previous thread that you had a Cockle Pippin. If it still survives, do you still think it's a low vigour variety? Mine on m25 is now almost as tall after 2 years as my five year old half-standard Howgate Wonder on mm106, although of course the Howgate Wonder is much much bigger if you account for spread as well.
      Last edited by chrisdb; 11-10-2016, 07:53 PM.

      Comment

      • #4
        One reason I went for Pyrodwarf is that I hve two pears on Quince A that are less than vigorous. The pears are in the sunniest part of the garden (furthest from the house) but that corner is very well drained. The bedrock about 2m down is also limestone around here, although the topsoil is close to neutral. I think some combination of excessive drainage and/or lime makes Quince a bad rootstock for my garden.

        Comment

        • #5
          I had a Cockle Pippin. I eventually removed it because on its medium-vigour rootstock it wasn't growing as well as I would have liked unless regularly fed and watered, but I had a number of other trees/bushes with the same problem so it wasn't unique to CP.
          Its vigour wasn't noticeably high nor low relative to the others. It seemed to have good disease resistance.

          I only have a few pears on Pyrodwarf and they are a little less vigorous than pear seedling but much more vigorous than Quince A.
          Quince and MM106 rootstocks don't like soil which is prone to drying out. Pears in general are less happy on drier soils. Apples on MM111 or M25 seem to cope best.

          It's difficult to compare the vigour of a mature MM106 which is (say) 7ft high and 7ft wide against a young M25 which is 8ft tall but no side branches.
          But where conditions are challenging MM106 might not even reach one-third the size of M25 whereas in good conditions MM106 might be three-quarters the size.

          If I were you, I'd maybe tolerate another year of the Pyrodwarf but at some point you might need to replace it with an M25 apple. It's possible that the pear's location is worse than the apple's location so if you replace the pear in a year or two you might want to consider a fairly vigorous apple on M25 just in case.
          .

          Comment

          • #6
            Sorry to hear the Cockle Pippin didn't work out. Did you ever get any fruit? I've never tried it since it seems to be pretty uncommon nowadays.

            The problem I have in my garden is that it's north facing with a 3m hedge on one side and the sunniest bit is also by far the driest bit. I have apples elsewhere on mm106 which are perfectly happy, but I gave the sunniest location to the pears. The trade-off there is that they don't get too much moisture at the roots unless I irrigate. Perhaps I should have done it the other way round and given the apples the dry spot.

            Comment

            • #7
              A strange thing has happened this year. The Beurre Sterckmans pear tree, which I never did get around to removing, is in its fourth year now. At the beginning of this year it was still only about 1.8m tall, but this year it's put on about half a metre so far with time still left to go. This means it's now taller than the also very slow growing older, neighbouring pears on QA.

              I'm not sure if the cause is recent weather conditions or pyrodwarf being extremely slow to establish... but hopefully patience has finally paid off.
              Last edited by chrisdb; 06-07-2019, 09:29 PM.

              Comment

              • #8
                I think fruit trees(indeed probably most trees) are a long haul project, my three apples are now around 15 years old and the Howgate Wonder has not grown much at all, the Delicious we don't really like, is huge and the James Greive is suffering badly with Scab, all three are likely to be replaced over the next few years in a new spot.

                Comment

                • #9
                  My guess would be that your pear tree has responded to the extra wet weather this year, as young pear trees tend to go in to slow motion if they are a bit dry at the roots.

                  Comment

                  • #10
                    I basically agree with FB on Pyrodwarf/PD rootstock, although he has a dry gravelly soil, I recall, and I have a moisture-retentive loam 10-20 m deep.

                    IMO, PD is a case of mis-selling by nurseries who should know better. After all, Frank Matthews Ltd. grow fruit trees wholesale and rate PD as pretty vigorous. They're on the same soil as I am. Some of the retailers will buy their trees from FM, so will know the score.

                    I'm currently partially bark-ringing as detailed in early/mid 20th.C fruit growing books to try to get them under control. That method was used on pears before quince A and C, I think.

                    I had no early period in which trees on PD grew slowly. They aimed for the sky immediately and are currently 3-3.5 m high.

                    I now have to think about 2019 summer pruning. Even with ring-barking, the Josephine de Malines and Doyenne d'Ete have multiple 'water shoots' about a metre high. The ring barking does though seem to have slowed down Beurre Bosc and Beurre Superfin to a crawl.

                    Even Quince A trees would be too big for my soil, with most pears. Quince C is pretty good. Re the comment from Nottingham, I certainly have no problems here of lime or excess drainage which might be a problem for quince.

                    Comment

                    Previous template Next

                    Latest Topics

                    Collapse
                    View All

                    Recent Blog Posts

                    Collapse
                    View All
                    Working...
                    X