Clone the winner and retest — the best tree may be the best soil

Farmers keep a 'mother' tree that always crops. Sometimes genetics; often the wet corner, the windbreak, or the extra manure. A seedling is unique. Until you graft or otherwise clone it and plant several copies beside a known standard, you have a story, not a variety.

Retest on more than one patch. Keep the original tree labelled. Do not fill the next block from one lucky plant.

If the copies look ordinary off that wet patch, you almost scaled a soil effect.

In this series

• Name the defect before you buy a famous cultivar
• Do not plant one clone as the whole orchard
• Fruit quality and root survival are two jobs
• Clone the winner and retest — the best tree may be the best soil
• Rank trees over years, not one heavy crop
• A trial is only as honest as the labels on the plants