Budding or Own Root Propagation?

Reasons for budding.

1 To propagate, or assist in propagating, plant varieties not otherwise conveniently propagated.
2 To substitute one part of a plant for another.
3 To join plants each selected for special properties, e.g. dease resistance or adaptability to special condittions of soil or climate.
4 to repair damage,to overcome stock/scion incompatability, to invigorate weakly plants.
5 To enable one root system to support more than a single variety or one branch system to derive from more than one root system.
6 To elucidate problems of structure, growth,and disease.

That's what the good Grafting Book gives as reasons.

During the past 12 months have been mulling over building a rooting come tussue culture cabinet to root cuttings anytime of the year that suitable cuttings are available.
After speaking to some of our older growers in my district they seem to think that over time the budded roses become own root due to build up of leaf and lucerne mulch above the graft. Budded roses if planted with the graft below the soil by 100mm will become own root very quickly and have the advantage of a double root system. ( see reasons above). One guy went on to say a lot of these old found roses were budded but with build up over the years have become own root. How long has budding been practiced?
I mentioned this to a long time rose growing friend and he claims this to be true as when moving mature plants has noticed the double root system.

I followed Simons budding on Multiflora then cutting 50mm either side of the bud system post with great interest but why bother with extra work just plant the graft below the surface and achieve the same result for less work.

There are a lot of extra benefits doing it this way firstly there is very little wood cut from the mother plant, one cutting suitable for striking will possibly have 6 to 8 buds. When asking people for a cutting they don't seem to like hacking a lot off their bushes so buds are an advantage.

Own root or budded has been debated on for years with many heritage rose growers opting for own root only, actually refusing to have budded roses as they don't fit into old systems of propagation. Some claim better results from own root roses but I am convinced a double root system would be superior and will proceed with this method. Only time will tell as the search for perfection goes on.

G'day Bruce,

I have to say I agree with pretty much everything you've said... and could only add comments to reinforce what you've said. I think it is important to remember that grafts were never meant to be permanent in roses. They were seen as a way to establish harder to propagate roses until there own roots kicked in and took over. What they found was that when planted below the graft the grafted portion developed its own roots and for a time the two root systems actually grew together. They also found that over time the understock's root system gradually declined and eventually died off competely. I plant all my roses below the graft these days to encourage just this (and will need to put up with the suckering of the rugosas ). I've not grown enough roses in this way to verify this myself (and I feel I may not have enough of the right roses to do so - more on that in a tick) but it makes sense. Then propagators realised how quickly stock could be multiplied by grafting and the emphasis switched from grafts being used as nurse roots to being the preferred method of propagation. My own personal opinion is that at this point roses started to lose their way a bit. There was not enough attention given to selecting roses that could grow on their own roots because they would be grafted anyway and now I think you would find that even if you did bury the graft in some modern roses that they would never establish themselves adequately. I think at this point in time you are right in saying that grafting is probably the way to go for the nurse roots reasons but I also think that breeders today should be trying to bring these qualities back into roses so they can live happily on their own roots because this is ultimately preferable for the rose itself. RMV in roses would be a thing of the past if we didn't have to graft our roses.

Bruce, I have posted this link before, but if you haven't seen it you might find it interesting: Propagating Roses - Understocks [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

In addition to this... I tend to use budding more often now to ensure that, when I do obtain new material, I am more assured of successfully raising it. Cuttings, I feel, are too hit and miss.

It is interesting to note also, that legends such as Mr Moore, who has mastered the art of propagating by cuttings, also consciously selected seedlings that WOULD do well on their own roots and WERE easy to strike. This issue isn't really an issue for a lot of miniatures these days because it was bred back into them. The use of Teas and other older varieties that strike easily in making new modern roses could be a key step in turning this around for full sized roses too.

Simon, thanks for the links regarding this subject. The six reasons mentioned in my best grafting book seem to cover it all. I was not suggesting HT's would own root but Tea's and Alister Clarks that I am now using would be suitable for double rooting. Then may the best root win be it the rootstock or the rose own roots. There are quite a few questions to be answered like 6.5 to 7 PH which is considered good for Huey and Multiflora budded HT roses. Do some varieties like a different PH, who knows?. Would like to test the soil where some of the species Teas are growing .
I should point out that I am not one eyed when it comes to own root or budded but know there is a best method depending on the circumstances when aquiring plant varieties. Nothing gets up my nose more than hearing people mention own root is the only and best way. Tissue culture is best for sending plant material across the other side of the world. Budwood is considered best for sending across Australia. Unfortunatly most people do not have all these skills and opt for planting a few cuttings with very low success rate when they don't have proper equipment for 90% success.

Currently I have a lot of HT's that are budded on Multiflora and Dr Huey ,some deeper than the graft and some well above, they are all just sitting there with no growth. The root stocks have come to the end of their life ( 12 to 15 years). These will have to be re budded before there is no new growth at all to use or lose them. Being HT's in Sydney losing them could be the best thing for my health and sanity. These HT roses planted deeper with the graft covered by mulch seem to last longer. I have come to the conclusion that rootstocks do have a 6 to 8 year life with a HT sitting on top.

I also have a Cecile Brunner grafted on Multiflora planted 1980 with the graft above the ground and it is a massive very vigorous grower. Why is this happening when the grafted HT's rootstock is failing?.
WHY IS IT SO ?. Does the rose keep the rootstock in good condittion.?
Not everything is black and white as some of the rose articles suggest.
However I am going to proceed with roses like Teas and AC's with the top of the graft level with the soil then mulch and MAY THE BEST ROOT WIN be it Multiflora or the own roots that will develope.

In the meantime will have a closer look at the links you highlighted.

I posted this hoping to get information re personal experiences from members rather than a mile of computer generated references.

Ozeboy,
I have a number of budded roses planted with the union below the ground. Only one I know of has rooted, Betty Prior which is a poly floribunda 1930ish and is easy to strike and grows well on its own roots.
The reason I know is, the Dr Huey keeps sprouting and I have to go digging to find it. I can see the roots from above the union.
I wish I had not planted this rose deeply and have a real concern that the other roses planted deeply will also begin to do the same thing. This rose has been wreaked by this. I am removing it this winter as I can not get rid of the Dr Huey growth.

I am not sure that the root stock would die off in time, in fact if the root stocks starts to sprout as this rose has done, the root stock will likely kill off the rose on top, with or without it's own roots.

I think budding really got going around the 1920's in a commercial way. It does make economic sense. You can plant lots of root stock and only one bud needed to make a new rose. Not to mention the fact that a good budder and do an awful lot of roses in one day. So for a growers trying to make money budding is the way to go.

However I do not see it as having improved the quality of roses in any way.
They do have a shorter life span if budded. I am sure there are exceptions, but as you are seeing with your HT, they do run out steam. The problem of take over by the root stock is constant. If you live in areas with real cold, budded roses are far more likely to die off in winter. If your husband mows your budded rose, you have likely lost it. If a strong winds grabs it and snaps it off, you have lost your rose. Viruses' are a big problem I often get in roses I buy from commercial growers. The list goes on and on.

As far as time, that budded roses are fast to make good sized bushes...I would like to see real proof of this statement. Maybe so with a modern rose that has no ability to grow on it's own roots, as it would languish next to the same rose budded. But that is not a fair example.

Here is tea rose that is almost exactly 1 year old from the day the cutting was taken. It is around 3 ft tall and as wide (please note the bush is planted 8-10" below ground level). Photo taken a few hours ago. Also note the white flowers behind it, you can't really see the rose, that is a budded rose planted last winter, so a 2 year old plant at that time and now almost 3 years old, it is also planted 8-10 lower than grond level. It is not near as big as the own root and they are both tea roses. I hate to say but there is another budded tea rose planted last winter in this photo but it is totally hidden by the surronding plants, maybe a foot tall.
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If you compare this to a budded rose, dated from the day the process started, the day the rootstock was planted (not the day it was budded), would it be bigger than this in one years time? From what I have been told budded roses are 2 years old when we buy them. I will see how big this rose is next year at this time, but I can tell you now it will be much bigger than a bare root roses I would buy and plant on that same day next year.

Having said all this I don't think it matters if someone is not interested in own root roses. Gardens these day are very short term adventures for the most part. I also think it will only be a matter of luck if the more modern roses will grow on their own roots, so from a practical point of view budding may be the only way to grow many roses today.

Cree, I get a similar result when using Dr Huey as an understock and won't ever use it in the future. This aside most older roses will own root on Multiflora. Will be doing some experiments with Teas to see if the reports I have had re them becoming own root are factual.
What ever the outcome I will be using budding or rooting cuttings to propagate for the best result.
Why is the Cecile Brunner Multiflora understock going so well?

This is brief as have had a lot of trouble with the Internet disconnecting in the middle of a longer post.

Bruce... it would be interesting to see if your 'Cecile Bruner' would do as well on 'Dr Huey'. 'Dr Huey', here is TERRIBLE. My soil is quite acidic and 'Dr Huey' resents this. If I take a rose that is budded onto 'Dr Huey' and bud it onto multiflora it will do a million times better. When I emailed the Aust. trial grounds about the rules for sending plants for trial I was advised to put all my plants onto 'Dr Huey' beacuse that seems to do well there. My Own 'Cecile Bruner' (climbing version) is on multiflora too and is also very vigorous. It's my second plant as the first one I bought was grafted onto 'Dr Huey' and was virused and so was discarded (and its vigour was nothing like the one I've got now on multiflora). I've ordered the non-climbing china/polyantha version of CB this year too and I bet it turns up on 'Dr Huey' and will need either replacing with a cutting grown plant or budding onto multiflora. I can't remember where I read about rootstock compatibility too... but seem to remember something about certain varieties doing better on certain rootstocks because there are sometimes compatibility issues between the understock and the scion. In general everything seems to do better here on multiflora though.

I was told a few years ago that the reason for budding was because you budded on a rootstock that should grow in all situations as against own roots which might fail away from the area they were grown in. However Mudgee is covered with Dr. Huey, as for some reason the suppliers in S. Australia which is where most of our plants here come from use it as a rootstock and boy does it take over the budded plant in quite a short period of time. So I do not know if this happens in other parts of the country but it certainly happens here. We use a multiflora but the nursery David worked for they also used 'Dorothy Perkins'. You would not want to do a lot of it as there are a lot of thorns. Iceburg would be a good rootstock because of its lack of thorns BUT mainly the sticks are very thin , perhaps much to thin. Or you could grow multiflora seedlings and bud onto them. I am told by budders that they do this in England with great results. Remember the seedlings are not very big and they are very flexible, so from what I was told they sort of bend them over with there foot and then bud on to them. I have not tried this method but hope to try this- this season. After all nothing ventured - nothing gained. Carole.