Effect of crooked roots in 5+ years

[cjccmc]

Looking at the roots my cuttings make in smallish cups, they twist and turn in all kinds of crazy directions that never would happen if rooted in ground or in very large containers. The general advice is not to disturb these roots when up potting. So what happens to an in ground tree when all these twisting roots would eventually get to 2+ inches in diameter?

My bottom line question is can you get a healthy mature tree from sequential up potting without ever doing anything along the way to "straighten" the roots?

[Blackfoot12]

The answer is "yes". Many of those roots you are observing do not survive and are replaced by new roots all the time.

[fruitnut]

Circling roots can and do remain. I just dug one up that still showed the circling that happened when in a pot. Only a few ever get big enough to matter. I sometimes score the sides when up potting to try to cut those circling roots. The chances of circling roots causing major issues later on are probably remote.

The roots don't grow in a straight line under most circumstances. There are usually weak and hard spots in soils that affect root direction. Pure loose sand might be the exception. Even there roots aren't going to grow in a straight line.

[cjccmc]

Thanks for sharing your experience.

[ThaiFigs]

I would expect colliding roots at some point will insoculate. I see it starting to happen in many air layers I've received.

[cjccmc]

Thai, what do you mean by "insoculate"?

[Rewton]

I pretty much always do root work when I up-pot for the reasons you mentioned. I prune away and/or straighten out circling roots and generally try to get the roots to radiate outwards from the trunk when potted in their new home. Of course you should try to avoid doing this during the hotter parts of the growing season - Spring (while still dormant) and Fall is best.

[Rewton]

The one exception is a newly rooted cutting where I am going from a 16 oz cup to a 1 gallon pot. In that case I try to handle the roots as little as possible because they are quite fragile at that stage.

[cjccmc]

I have two 10 year old in ground trees with 4" diameter trunks. Both grew steadily and never had any prolonged stunting. If I had started both from cuttings I'd know from firsthand experience that the twisted root growth forced by walls of smallish containers don't have long term detrimental effect. But one of these I got from a natural air layer from the mother tree and put it straight into ground. The other I bought as a 2 gal bare root and I flared out the roots when planting it.

I do have experience transplanting tomatoes and other non tree plants from root bound small containers. Most do well without any effort to straighten or trim the roots. OTOH, makers of "root training" grow pots show numerous examples of transplanted root bound (non fig) trees that don't thrive. When put in ground the roots stay almost entirely within the bounds of the old container.

One of my hopes for this posting was to get reports from members who have 5+ year thriving mature trees started from cuttings in small cups/pots. Hopefully their recall of practices in transplanting/up-potting can help us all know if "helping" the roots is something we may want to consider somewhere along the way.

[Wisner]

I have some mature fig trees that are 10+ years old that I started from cuttings and grew in pots until transplanting. They have grown well and I didn't make any special effort on spreading or scoring the root ball. On the ones I have planted in recent years I have made some effort to rough up the root ball, known as "tickling the roots." I don't think it is real important on fig trees, especially ones 2 years old or younger.

[AscPete]

Twisting and turning roots are usually not problematic for figs. Circling large roots are usually the only ones that are of concern because they may eventually create a "knot" at the base of the tree and interfere with vascular flow.

Scoring circling roots before up potting (larger than 1 gallon / dormant), occasional root pruning (reducing the root ball) and bare-rooting after several years of growth should be sufficient to keep fig tree roots healthy.