Cider and perry orchard on an allotment
Hi! I’m building a small cider and perry orchard on my allotment. I’ll be setting out 5 cordons up to 1.8m high and plan to plant 7 trees on each. As an initial plan, I was looking for 25 Dabinett trees and 10 Perry trees (I haven’t chosen a variety yet). I would like to plant bareroot trees on a rootstock optimised for this purpose. Is that something you guys might be able to help with? Jx
Asked by: Jack from London, 12-Oct-2024
Hi Jack Thanks for contacting us. The rootstock you need for your project is probably M9. Unfortunately cider trees are usually supplied on vigorous or at best semi-vigorous rootstocks, because cider production requires large volumes of apples - but these trees would get far too big to fit on an allotment.
The best alternative might be to plant some mainstream apple varieties which have good juice qualities, and are available on M9.
Ashmeads Kernel, Discovery, Rosette, Fiesta, Red Devil, Red Windsor and Katy all have very good juice and if mixed in with some Bramley you might be able to get a good cider blend.
You could also try planting a Dabinett cider tree on MM106 rootstock and training it along a trellis to keep the height down.