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fruit trees from cuttings vs. grafted

 
pollinator
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I just potted up some cutting grown pomegranate 'wonderful' and woul like to have some input on grafted trees vs. cuttings.
I know that cutting grown trees don't develop the same strong rootstock. However, all trees suitable for our region are dwarf or at least semi-dwarf so that we can net it.
We don't get any frut without netting. Now dwarf rootstocks aren't grown from seed that means that they don't have a strong root system either.
Is growing fruit trees from cuttings OK or are they inferior?
 
pollinator
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Depends what you mean as inferior :-)
Dwarfing rootstock can mean your trees does not live as long ,less robust less able to withstand drought  and harvests are much smaller .
Your tree from the cutting may be larger than your original trees but it might not fruit for many years and when it does it might produce a crop that is far greater than the dwarfing one . Or itmight not I can see a dwarfing rootstock used on a tress just because it was available and the tree it's self might be not much bigger . Its all about producing trees fast to sell them .
Fun finding out I think

David
 
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I don't have an answer to your question, just a thought about what I'm going to do next. I had a delicious but very old Greengage tree in my garden, next to it was a young wild plum which was no doubt planted by the previous owners to take a graft. I didn't know how to graft and kept putting it off till the Greengage was blown down during a storm, and dearly regretted it. Then discovered permaculture and started learning the all too numerous reasons for this or that choice. Now my very old and delicious Cherry tree is dying. I still haven't learnt how to graft but have just been reminded that I can reproduce it by AIR LAYERING. The main advantage compared to taking a cutting is that the daughter will have a well-developed root system BEFORE being cut off from the mother, & the mother will remain undamaged untill the layered plant is removed. I can plant my layered cherry and if I decide it's going to get too big for my garden, I can still graft it, even if the mother has died in the meantime. Or I can do both, and decide later, even years later, whether to keep one or both of my new cherry trees. In fact, it's my next job in the garden, and a friend is going to try to do the same for her delicious old Greengage tree, so hopefully we'll each have a delicious cherry and a delicious greengage !
 
Sonya Noum
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... another option if you have the room to experiment is trees from seed - not true to the mother, but explored in permaculture - much is said about this topic on Internet.

Incidentally, whether you decide to go for seeds or cuttings or air layering or grafting, there are apparently many ways to slow down the growth of fruit trees other than dwarf stock. Called "Tree Management Techniques" in this article https://www.orangepippin.com/resources/own-roots, called "modern pruning" in the orchard I visited at my local fruit tree conservation centre (not quite the same thing), have a look around the Internet you'll see some of the options.
 
Angelika Maier
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In our area all trees need to be dwarf, because of the birds, they do NOT share so no seeds here. I would always prefer a full size tree if I could just for the looks. David, obviously it is not that easy to find out.
Of course the safest way is to buy some rootstock and you know what you have.
I mean figs are always grown from cuttings, but that's the excetption.
 
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Pomegranate are usually grown on their own root stock no dwarfing rootstock used.
 
Angelika Maier
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True and so far the parrots were not interested, I think the one I have is a cutting.
 
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