Malus question

bridge

I also have some air layers that I took from an already flowering wild crab that grows in my back yard. This will be the second spring on their own roots. They flowered a bit last spring but did not fruit. This year I will try to air layer a thicker branch. Is there a relationship between branch thickness and air layer success? I'm looking at about a 2" branch but if your experiences say that that is too large then I'll go smaller. Thanks. Bob.

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OKbonsai

Yes that is what I am talking about. All my crabs here are seed grown. Some by me and some by Sooner Plant Farm. The picture I posted was started from seed in 2002. That makes it, this year 6 years old and it started blooming 2 years ago. So if I understand you correctly the trees sold in nurseries that are flowering are 20 years old. Or are you saying it takes a crab from seed 20 years to flower. Sorry for my confusion.
F

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The difference between Genius and Stupidity is, Genius has it's limits.

ElGringo

Sorry to hijack your thread Bridge, but I too am curious about how long crab apple seedlings take to flower, having heard various reports myself:


http://forum.bonsaitalk.com/f14/see...ower-27416.html

I've seen flowering ones in people's gardens, that can't be more than 5 years old, but then these could be grafted.

Cheers

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Richard

bridge

Hijack away ElGringo! We're here to learn.

Brent

Frank

The trees sold in nurseries are not twenty years old. They are usually less than five year old bare root GRAFTED trees. This is almost 100% the case. It is very difficult to find either seedling or cutting grown crabs in traditional nurseries. A few bonsai nurseries will have seedlings, cuttings, or both, mostly to avoid the graft issue.

Grafts do NOT have to be twenty years old to flower, or ten, or even five. The scion used to make the graft is from mature wood that already flowers and fruits, so the grafted tree has the same characteristics as the the 'mother' tree. Potentially it can flower immediately. Cuttings taken from mature wood (an already flowering tree) are the same. Cuttings 'revert' to a juvenile state for about two years after taking the cutting and then begin flowering again. Grafted trees usually don't revert at all and simply continue to flower.

If you want CULTIVAR crabs, that is named 'varieties', they must be either grafted or cutting grown. Seedling offspring from cultivars will show genetic variation and CANNOT carry the cultivar name. This is very important for nursery growers and even individuals so that there are not misnamed plants floating around. Often, seedlings will show remarkable similarities, but more probably most seedlings will show variation in foliage shape and color, even long before the flower color will be known. Disease susceptibility variation also is a factor. Cultivars have been selected for strong disease resistance.

Most 'apple' trees, that is fruiting Malus will take twenty years or more to mature, and will show wide variation. Wilder forms of Malus, which are crabs will often mature more quickly, as Frank pointed out. However, it is still an unknown for any particular crab seedlings.

Brent

Brent

Sorry, had to walk the dogs.

The crabs with the strongest flowering tendencies and most prolific fruit production will often be from the wildest stock and may flower earlier (five to ten years), but nothing is ever guaranteed with seedlings, neither the maturity time nor the flower color, nor fruit size, nor fruit color. All this can be avoided (as well as nasty grafts) by using cutting grown cultivars. Several US bonsai nurseries, including ours are producing these for bonsai.

Larger sized fruiting crabs such as 'Dolgo', 'Bechtel', 'Echtermeyer', 'Cardinal' will most likely take longer to mature and show more variation. Given that crabs grown in the East often suffer from fungal diseases, and the uncertainty of the other characteristics, I don't recommend growing from seed when cuttings are readily available for just a few dollars each. Why plan on putting twenty years in a tree and skimp on five to ten dollars at the outset? Collecting wild crabs is of course another matter. If you can find ancient trees with tons of character, go for it.

Brent

waltseed

I don't often post here, as I know less than most of you about bonsai. I'm here to learn, not teach.
But I have done a lot of growing fruit from seeds, and read all I can on fruit breeding. And I live near an agricultural university, so that is a lot.
Brent is right generally about apple seedling, but doesn't seem to know about some less common apple seed strains. Some of these have been selected for generations, and are coming fairly true to type, though not completely.
Others are from the rare trees that come fairly true to type without the inbreeding. Such trees are found to produce trees much like themselves through trial and error, mostly error. Apomixis, seeds produced without sex, is known in apples, and may be the cause of this in some cases. In other cases it may be due to a group of dominant genes in a given tree. It hasn't been cost-effective to find out why in most cases.
So anyway, here is a link to a source of seedling crabs, some with acceptable eating quality, in case that matters, and others with superier disease resitance, which generally matters. THESE, unlike most, do not take 20 years, nor even 10 years, to bloom if grown rapidly. Size does matter.
And like Brent says, seedlings are varialbe, but these are much less so than most.
http://oikostreecrops.com/store/pro...PageHistory=cat
I've done business with this guy for years, and I've aways liked my results.
And Brent, I hope you don't take offense. I've gotten a lot of help from your website, and the many responses you've written to people here. And at least once, you have responded to me directly. But out of the thousands of crabapple varieties on Earth, there are some exceptions that are not as you say. And I think that some of these exceptions are of interest to the bonsai community.
And to those who want the tried and true crabapple varieties that are proven to do well as bonsai, Brent has some good starters at a good price.
Me, I'm trying some of the Oikos seedlings and I'm happy so far.

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Waltseed

Brent

Walt

I'm not offended, I'm glad you and Frank added some very important information to this discussion. I learned a few new things, nothing wrong with that. As a nurseryman, my interests of course run more toward propagation of cultivars. If there are some seedling strains of crabs that will come true and offer disease resistance as well, that's great. My fear is that folks will simply think that starting any apple seeds will be a good (read cheap) way of starting bonsai, even seed from apples they eat. The overall odds of getting good bonsai this way are extremely low, whereas starting from cutting grown cultivars success is limited mostly by your skills.

Brent