[Pil-pc-oceania] "Permaculture Plants" - Seedling Root Form Vs Commercial Rootstocks

[David Arnold]

As the nutrition available to the seedlings is important, it is relevant to
mention that Campbell Holt, permie from Northern Victoria, north of
Shepparton, is operating an organic fruit tree nursery.  Mainly deciduous
fruit tree varieties.

Ph. Campbell 03 5868 2101


..... Dave A



On 27/01/07, David Arnold <arnold.vt at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Laurence, Susan, and Joel,
>
> I have the experience here of seedling peaches and nectarines [10 of]
> performing way better than conventionally propagated grafted peach and
> nectarine seedlings.
>
> Both were transplanted, but the seedlings were transplanted after one year
> of growth in the vegetable garden, while I think the commercial grafted
> trees would have had one year of seedling growth, then grafted, then another
> year of growth before sale as 2 year old trees.  The commercially propagated
> trees may have already been transplanted at least once, maybe twice or more,
> within the nursery farm before sale to me.
>
> The seedling trees came from seed of excellent quality Bd fruit [Adrian
> Martin at Ruffy] which germinated in compost in the vegetable garden.
>
> So in terms of nutritional start and number of times transplanted the
> seedlings were already way ahead before planting out on-site.
>
> I have read that the nutrition available to a corn seedling in the first
> few weeks of growth determines the ultimate number of kernels on the cob.
> Some similar factors may apply to fruit tree seedlings.
>
> regards,
>
> David
>
> David Arnold
> Permaculture Designer
> 4446 Murchison Rd
> Violet Town VIC AUS 3669
> 03 5798 1679
> arnold.vt at gmail.com
>
>
>  On 25/01/07, Laurence Gaffney <lgaffney at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> >  Hello Susan & Joel
> > I have wondered for some time whether or not the root form of seedlings
> > may (often/sometimes) be substantially different (deep/er tap roots for
> > instance) than to that of "cloned" rootstocks.Their does not seem to be
> > much information around on this point. (hence there may not be a point)
> > The wild harvest referred to may be predominantly from non-grafted
> > seedling fruit ?
> > The Fukuokan Philosophy is that nature knows what it is doing.
> > That is, nature usually grows trees from seed and that the Tree "knows"
> > what form it wants to be.
> > I am slowly coming to the belief that seedling fruit trees should play a
> > greater role in Permaculture Systems
> > than they appear to do currently. My own (very limited) experience is
> > that the seedling trees have less problems.There are many other issues
> > to consider I know (eg.size, palatability) , but general hardiness and
> > drought tolerance should be pretty high on our lists I would think.
> >
> > Please comment folks
> >
> > Laurence Gaffney
> >
> > Joel Meadows said:-
> > Dear Susan,
> > I often find that the quality of wild harvest is better, and almost
> > always more abundant (fruit per tree) than my managed, prunned and netted
> > (if I get to it before the possums do) trees. It makes me think that Fukiama
> > San (of the One Straw Revolution) was right about not pruning trees and
> > letting things go a bit wild to get the best out of natural systems.
> > Susan Girard said:-
> >  I for one harvest from fruit trees on council land, the plums this year
> > have been great and the apples are just coming into season. Irritatingly
> > they are often better than the fruit from my own trees.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Pil-pc-oceania mailing list
> > Pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org
> > http://jasper.cmsarchitects.com/mailman/listinfo/pil-pc-oceania
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
>



-- 
David Arnold
Permaculture Designer
4446 Murchison Rd
Violet Town VIC AUS 3669
03 5798 1679
arnold.vt at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://jasper.cmsarchitects.com/pipermail/pil-pc-oceania/attachments/20070205/f556ba2d/attachment.html