Stooling Bed question: Best time of year to cut an apple tree down to maximize sucker growth?

Hello,  I would like to make a stool bed to propagate apple rootstock.   I have several older trees that I would like to cut down to obtain suckers from the roots for grafting.

It's coming to the end of the growing season, and I was wondering when would be the best time to cut the tree to maximize my chances of getting the most (if any) amount of suckers from the root base.

Is it best to cut the tree in the spring when the tree is just waking up?  Would it be better in the summer when the tree is fully in leaf?  In the fall/ winter when the tree is fully dormant?  It seems like any of these times might be good times but I'm not sure.  Summer seems like the worst idea, but I could be wrong about that.

Thank for any suggestions.  I would really appreciate any help.

Have a good day!
Tim

I think that late winter/early spring seems like it should be best. In fall, cut branches or trunks can open the bark and wood up to damage over the winter, while in summer most of the tree's energy is up in the tree, in the form of leaves, unripe fruit, sap, and so on. During the winter the tree becomes dormant, retreats inward; then in spring, that is naturally the time when that energy is going to be released in the form of new growth.

I don't have an orchard so I can't say for sure, but.....

I would say 'no' to summer as trees have largely stopped growing for the year by that point and are sequestering food for the next year. Not a good time to initiate growth. I'd say 'no' to the fall as well. I suspect you would get a lot of die back over the winter which isn't something you want. Winter would be better than fall, but you will probably still get some dieback, and you are removing most all buds for the next year. Maybe early spring before bud break? Yu won't get much dieback, but again, removing all the new buds. I'd say cut it sometime after buds have become active but way before the tree stops growing for the year, which translates to somewhat early to mid spring. The tree will interpret this as a growing leaf loss and will immediately generate new growth from the remaining stump with lots of growing season left. Cutting at this time in this way might produce what I coined as 'compensatory growth' which is growth above and beyond what would be expected had the tree not been defoliated. I did my MS thesis on browse utilization and researched that browsing often results in more twig growth produced for the year than if no browsing had taken place to begin with.

That's my best guess, theory, and explanation.

Mark Reynolds wrote:I don't have an orchard so I can't say for sure, but.....

I would say 'no' to summer as trees have largely stopped growing for the year by that point and are sequestering food for the next year. Not a good time to initiate growth. I'd say 'no' to the fall as well. I suspect you would get a lot of die back over the winter which isn't something you want. Winter would be better than fall, but you will probably still get some dieback, and you are removing most all buds for the next year. Maybe early spring before bud break? Yu won't get much dieback, but again, removing all the new buds. I'd say cut it sometime after buds have become active but way before the tree stops growing for the year, which translates to somewhat early to mid spring. The tree will interpret this as a growing leaf loss and will immediately generate new growth from the remaining stump with lots of growing season left. Cutting at this time in this way might produce what I coined as 'compensatory growth' which is growth above and beyond what would be expected had the tree not been defoliated. I did my MS thesis on browse utilization and researched that browsing often results in more twig growth produced for the year than if no browsing had taken place to begin with.

That's my best guess, theory, and explanation.

Thank you Mark,  You gave me a lot of good information that I didn't know.  It certainly changed my direction because I had planned on cutting down the tree as soon as it went dormant.  Now I think that I'm going to do it just a little after I finish my grafting for the season.  Sort of a lie in a way because I have very little left to graft to and I have grafts almost everywhere now.  That's why I need a stooling bed.

I got to thinking about cutting the tree and how I should do it.  I can't think that it would matter, but would cutting the stump low to the ground change how the tree reacts?  The reason that I ask is because the orchard that I'm involved with has many trees that were cut with no signs of  rootstock suckers ever appearing.   Maybe it was the time of year that the trees were cut,  maybe the root system was already sick and dying - I'm not sure.  All that I do know is that there are stumps about two feet high and barren.

Thank you again!  Stay awesome!  Tim

Tim Mackson wrote:

Mark Reynolds wrote:I don't have an orchard so I can't say for sure, but.....

I would say 'no' to summer as trees have largely stopped growing for the year by that point and are sequestering food for the next year. Not a good time to initiate growth. I'd say 'no' to the fall as well. I suspect you would get a lot of die back over the winter which isn't something you want. Winter would be better than fall, but you will probably still get some dieback, and you are removing most all buds for the next year. Maybe early spring before bud break? Yu won't get much dieback, but again, removing all the new buds. I'd say cut it sometime after buds have become active but way before the tree stops growing for the year, which translates to somewhat early to mid spring. The tree will interpret this as a growing leaf loss and will immediately generate new growth from the remaining stump with lots of growing season left. Cutting at this time in this way might produce what I coined as 'compensatory growth' which is growth above and beyond what would be expected had the tree not been defoliated. I did my MS thesis on browse utilization and researched that browsing often results in more twig growth produced for the year than if no browsing had taken place to begin with.

That's my best guess, theory, and explanation.

Thank you Mark,  You gave me a lot of good information that I didn't know.  It certainly changed my direction because I had planned on cutting down the tree as soon as it went dormant.  Now I think that I'm going to do it just a little after I finish my grafting for the season.  Sort of a lie in a way because I have very little left to graft to and I have grafts almost everywhere now.  That's why I need a stooling bed.

I got to thinking about cutting the tree and how I should do it.  I can't think that it would matter, but would cutting the stump low to the ground change how the tree reacts?  The reason that I ask is because the orchard that I'm involved with has many trees that were cut with no signs of  rootstock suckers ever appearing.   Maybe it was the time of year that the trees were cut,  maybe the root system was already sick and dying - I'm not sure.  All that I do know is that there are stumps about two feet high and barren.

Thank you again!  Stay awesome!  Tim

2 ft high and barren doesn't make a lot of sense, especially for an apple. The notion that the tree was already dying or even dead at the time it was cut makes sense.

In terms of cutting the tree without killing it inadvertently instead of getting it to sucker, I read an article/technical note at one point in time about leaving a "lifeline" on old, culled apple trees by leaving a single branch/stem of the original tree when using the tree to graft new stock on to.  It seems that procedure would work here as well. Thinking along those lines, and this is an idea I just spun in my head and has no support or basis on anything I've ever heard of, What if you were to girdle the tree 1/3 to 4/5 around the trunk of the tree? My thought is that this injury to the tree won't kill it, but will stress the tree enough to produce the suckers below the injury. As for cutting the entire tree down: If you do that, I'd leave some stump for suckers to be produced off of, and I'd apply that same notion to a partial girdling as well.

I cut stools down to about 2 inch over the soil after the last frosts are likely gone. You will get suckers.