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

[Laurence Gaffney]

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.



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