Understock boydorchards.com

The orchard as a built system

A tree that is two trees

New shoots breaking from a cut branch stub
Cut wood answers with new growth. Where two woods are joined, that same response is what closes the union and makes one tree of two.Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Rootstock decides the size of an apple tree, so the graft union is the most consequential joint in the orchard. From there follows everything else: the wire that holds the planting up, the few hours in spring when pollination actually happens, the fruit deliberately taken off in June, and the sealed room that keeps an apple asleep until March.

Filed from the union outward. Every entry says what the rootstock decided and what was left to the grower.

The lead entry

Union · Section 01
A trellised tree carrying a full crop of red apples
Union · Entry 01

The rootstock decides

Size, precocity, anchorage and how long the tree takes to pay for itself are all set below the graft. The scion supplies the fruit and almost nothing else.

By the Understock desk · Union · 5 min read Read the entry
The variety is what the buyer asks for by name. Everything else about this tree — its height, its spacing, the year it began to crop — was settled below the graft. Photo: Jeffry Surianto / Pexels

Growers this orchard consults.

Growers, suppliers, and allied trades.

Five sections, filed from the union outward

25 entries
A young grafted tree with bare roots lying on a bench Section 01

Union

The joint that decides the size of the tree.

6 entries A trellised row of slender trees carrying fruit Section 02

Structure

Posts, wire and what holds a modern planting up.

6 entries Rows of blue beehives among orchard trees Section 03

Bloom

The few hours in which the crop is actually set.

5 entries Small green fruitlets scattered on the grass beneath orchard trees Section 04

Thinning

Taking fruit off on purpose.

4 entries An insulated store door in a concrete wall, baskets and crates outside Section 05

Store

Keeping an apple asleep until March.

4 entries The whole register

All 25 entries

Every entry in one list, in the order the decisions are made — from the rootstock order to the day the store is sealed.

25 entries

The whole sequence

Decision · what it settles · window
No.SectionWhat is decidedWindow
01 Union Which rootstock, and how high the union sits above the soil. The order year, then planting day
02 Structure Post spacing, wire count, anchor type and the distance between trees. Before the trees arrive
03 Bloom Which varieties partner which, and the day the hives come in. Four to seven days in spring
04 Thinning How much of what set is allowed to stay on the spur. Twenty to forty days after full bloom
05 Store The atmosphere in the room, and the day the door is sealed. The day the room fills

What the stock decides

The rootstock decides
Vigour How much growth gets past the union — and so how tall the tree ever becomes.
Precocity How soon it crops. A dwarfing stock bears in years two to three; a vigorous one can take six.
Anchorage Whether the tree can stand on its own roots, or the trellis has to do it instead.
Soil behaviour Drought, wet ground and replant disease are answered below the graft, not above it.

Every decision in a modern planting is made years before it shows. The register runs from the rootstock order to the day the store is sealed.

All 25 entries