Own-Root Fruit Trees
Many species of fruit (e.g. fig, filbert, olive, pomegranate) are commonly grown on their own roots, as there may be no great advantages to using a special rootstock, or suitable rootstocks may not be readily available. However even for fruit trees which usually are grown grafted on a rootstock, there can be advantages in growing them on their own roots instead, particularly in the traditional coppicing systems advocated in both sustainable agriculture and permaculture. Disadvantages of using own root trees can include excessive size and excessive production of wood (thus very long times until the start of fruit production), although training branches horizontally and limiting pruning to summer only may help encourage fruit production at an earlier age. There is a lack of research on the use of the own root method in large scale systems.
Read more about this topic: Fruit Salad Tree
Famous quotes containing the words fruit and/or trees:
“As a tree my sin stands
To darken all lands;
Death is the fruit it bore.”
—Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)
“One wonders that the tithing-men and fathers of the town are not out to see what the trees mean by their high colors and exuberance of spirits, fearing that some mischief is brewing. I do not see what the Puritans did at this season, when the maples blaze out in scarlet. They certainly could not have worshiped in groves then. Perhaps that is what they built meeting-houses and fenced them round with horse-sheds for.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)