Stooling beds ??

[cavey]

I've got about 25 plus root stocks left over from last year (row planted), they put on good growth and one would assume had decent root growth; plan was/is to stool them next year. Question is for those of you that have tried it (making stooling beds). Has all the hassle been worth it. I can get root stock for .65 - .85 cents per tree plus shipping.

2nd question is what worked best for mounding up ... just soil or sawdust or a composted mix any tips would be appreciated.

and what were you averaging for the number of shoots coming up per tree/root cutting?

 

[chickenlittle]

I've read up on it and will do a few stoolbeds in the future of some hard to get rootstocks. I plan to use sawdust.

As for worth it... if you are very frugal, patient, have the time, and want to graft a few hundred more trees in the next 10 years, I think it would be worth it. Otherwise I'd stool a handful to tinker and keep buying rootstock.

From my reading, I would expect 1 to 3 graftable stems the first year, 3 to 5 stems the 2nd year. You might plant out other weak stems for later grafting to improve productivity.

 

[chickenlittle]

There is another advantage I did not mention in my first post. It you like bud grafting, you could bud the larger caliper stems in late summer and skip bench grafting. Just dig up, prune off above the buds and plant out.

 

[greyphase]

I've played around with stoolbeds. I planted 1 B118 & 1 G202 in 2014, cut them back to ground level and got 2 nice B118rootstock and 4 G202 rootstock off them in the spring of 2015. I cut the bottom off of a 5 gallon bucket and fill with sawdust as the shoots grow. Not trying to save money, just monkeying around with them. :D I've planted some more B118's , a couple G969's , one G30, and one M7 this spring. I'm letting these grow for one year to better establish their roots before I cut them back to ground level.
These are the B118's.

These are the G202's

I grafted to the two best ones that spring and potted up the other two for a year. They all survived and thrived.

 

[cavey]

My goal is to try and save money(plus the fun of trying new stuff), shipping cost me as much as the root stock and eventually I just want to do enough to be able to restock my losses and give some trees away to friends plus have a sustainable source of root stock to add a few more varieties. This has become kind of addicting and once I found out T-budding is done in the fall and not the spring its opened up a whole new season of grafting. My hope is to have a small stooling bed for cherries and pears too. I'm going to order another batch of root stock for 2017 but after that I hope to be independent and grow my own.

Ive got 32 standard root stocks planted with 2 years growth... if I get 2 to 3 shoots per plant that would be more than enough. Bad thing is this T-budding - well I did a half dozen bud grafts on them... kind of changes my plans if they take. Thanks everyone for the input.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Pear and cherry root stocks are grown from seed or cuttings.

 

[cavey]

Pear and cherry root stocks are grown from seed or cuttings.

Im new to this stuff, still learning... Im making a cloner for cuttings (got all the parts pieces just have to find the time to assemble, plus Ive done the bag trick ( potting soil bags with holes poked in them for red osier cuttings; cut a hole on each end for watering - works really well) and have made a cutting bed for future clippings... goal is to have an area for reproducing varieties - little of this, little of that. Even some seed bed areas.