Air Layering for Propagation of Trees

[George Collins]

This past August, I met a fellow tree liker. In the course if conversation, he let slip his ability to "air layer." I jumped all over that one by shamelessly asking him to teach me. He grabbed the required materials, we walked out his back door and within minutes he had demonstrated the technique.

At the earliest opportunity, while the lesson was still fresh, I made the following video:



After waiting the requisite time, I recorded the next installment:


Between making those two videos I did some research on which trees this technique would work on. The one downside is that if you air layer a grafted fruit tree, even though an exact genetic clone of the mother tree, the root stock which often exerts some beneficial influence, will not have influence in the newly cloned plant. One such variable is size. Often times fruit trees are grown on dwarfing rootstock to control size. I once saw an Asian pear tree as big as an oak. That's fine for a single tree out in the middle of a cow pasture but when planting a food forest, that one tree could shade out all others depending upon the size.

However, for those trees that one might want to clone which are growing on their own roots, air layering is a very viable method if plant propagation. Some fruit trees that I think I remember that are grown on their own rootstock are Dwarf Northstar cherries and Seckel pears. I'm sure there are others. In my particular case though, we had a seedling pecan volunteer around Youngblood's old barn site that has a nice growth form, has born consistently and heavily for the past several years and produces large, tasty though slightly thick shelled pecans.

Today, I air layered two limbs of that pecan tree that had been previously damaged by high winds and have since resprouted. If successful, these two air layered trees, once harvested will be potted up and babied until about this time next year when they will become part of the hog food forest.

[matt walker]

Awesome. My favorite plum tree is growing on it's own rootstock. I'm all over this. I've propagated berries this way forever, but never thought of trying it with trees. Thanks George.

[pa_friendly_guy]

Is that a special kind of Moss George? Or is it just any old moss that will hold water? Your moss looked very black and almost well rotted. The moss I have growing here at my place is green. I WONDER IF IT WOULD WORK?

[George Collins]

Guy, the medium used is Spagnum Peat Moss and can be found at most farm supply stores as well as the DIY type stores like Home Depot and Lowes. The reason it is so dark is because it is very wet.

Over the course of the past year I've come to greatly appreciate the role of humidity in keeping an otherwise stressed tree alive or to catalyze germination. For instance, I've had hickory nuts and chinquapins germinate in nothing more than plastic bags. I've read that fig cuttings will root in nothing more than plastic bags. I had a limb from a friend's jujube that got torn off by a deer that I kept alive for months in a pot of Mel's mix enclosed in a large, clear plastic bag that died within one day of me removing it from the bag. I'd be willing to wager that any reasonable medium that keeps humidity at or near 100% around the wound of an air layered branch would serve adequately.

Having said that, I continue to use peat moss out of an abundance of caution and because I caught it on sale one day and bought about 33 cubic feet of it if I remember correctly.

[pa_friendly_guy]

Peat Moss is sold here in large bails. It is fairly reasonable in cost, you see it on sale a lot in the spring. When I built the house many years ago and planted shrubbery I put a huge amount of it down around the bushes I planted before I put down plastic and decorative stones. This was before I learned about double digging, and before I started to garden at all. The back fill around the house foundation is all sand stone rock. At that time I thought peat moss was the same as mulch, or that it would work the same as mulch. A Landscaper friend of mine explained to me, after I was done with the project, that peat moss added almost no nutritional value, it was only good for holding moisture. I did that project so that I would not have to weed around the house. I have never fertilized the shrubs in 30 years, they just grow. I have put muriatic acid around the rhododendrons as well as the azaleas, and I sprinkled some aluminum sulfate around them a few years ago to help with the purple bloomers. The acid I have from cleaning the pool filter in spring and need to get rid of it so I dump it out on the acid loving bushes. The aluminum sulfate I bought at the local feed store for a Blue hydrangea that I planted. It helps the hydrangea bloom blue, and it works well. They sell it at garden centers in a 1lb bag for a couple of Dollars. I bought 15 lb at the feed store for $7. I still have some left, Now that I have rambled on about nothing related to the subject, I will say that I have heard about the process and was interested in how it was done. I never had anyone explain it as well, or actually show me how to do it until now George, Thanks. I heard about people using the process with Rhododendrons, but I had not heard of its use with fruit trees. Grafting seemed to always be the preferred method of creating new fruit trees that will grow and produce true around here.