Starting fruit trees from cuttings?

I have found some sites on line that showed how to take a tree limb still on a fruit tree and slice 1/2 of the back off of it for something like 3 or 4 inches, and then wraping it in gauze, (just like you use for a cut on a human body), and then wetting the gauze with a root tone type of mixture and then covering it with plastic and taping it at both ends.
According to what I read, you could take any size cutting from the tree and do it meaning if you were going to prune a tree that had a limb that was 6 to 8 feet long, you ended up with a tree that was rooted good and ready to put into a five gallon planting pot of potting soil and would have a pretty good sized tree the first year.
I have a friend that is starting an orchard and doing very well with it I might add.
He already has 5 apples, 4 peaches, 3 pears, 3 plums 3 cherry, and some others that I forget right now, but he has a total of 31 different type of fruit trees that are already setting fruit. I mean each apple tree is different types from each other, etc. but Steve wants to prune a few whole limbs from every one of the trees he has and some of them is more than an inch wide and 6 to 8 feet long.
I have 20 acres of field here behind the house and he only has 6 acres and most of that is either wooded or already a garden.
If any of you great people out there can point me to a site that shows how to wrap them up and root them, I'd be happy to send you a rooting of each one of the trees for shipping cost only. 31 trees will start your own mini orchard, LOL.
I have just got to find the site that shows how to do it so Steve can read it himself. If I get it going right I can get more than 100 trees already about 6 feet tall from get go here just from his pruning.
But he is scared if he does it that it will "bleed the tree to death" as he says it.
I looked at it good and I fully understand how it wooks but he has to see it before he does it. And I hat to see him through away a hundred or more future trees.
Any help finding a site that shows how would sure be appriciated.
Thanks ahead for any help, and as I said, I'll send whoever hooks me up with some baby trees if they want and the trees he bought cost from $34.99 up to $69 each.
Dennis
I am not sure if my e-mail is on here but it is
dennis_phillips7@yahoo.com
Thanks again.

briggs4512010-05-17T13:13:55Z

Favorite Answer

Whew! That's gotta be the record for the longest question. What you are proposing is called air layering. It's one of several asexual propagating methods. Take a look at this link. It gives a pretty good explanation

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/ornamentals/airlayer/airlayer.html

I would add just a few notes.
1. Make the final outside wrap of your air layer an opaque material. It helps if roots are in the dark.
2. Rooting hormones won't hurt but in my experience they don't do much good either.
3. Don't be too ambitious when selecting the branch to layer. True, you can layer large branches but the layering will not permit large root mass so the tree will experience significant die-back, and may take years to develop. Smaller is better.
4. Monitor your layered pouches frequently and don't let them dry out. I use a hypodermic syringe to add water so I don't have to disturb the wrapping

30

?2016-04-12T09:40:07Z

most fruit trees are grafted onto a different rootstock. speak to a nursery wholesaler to buy some rootstock or get some seed.

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