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HELIOS Nursery was founded as a propagator of apple, pear and cherry bare root rootstocks and grafted trees in Oregon, USA.
Most of the hundreds of thousands of rootstocks and grafted trees the company produces annually are shipped nationally to fruit orchardists. Its two-year-old grafted trees are field grown and sold bare root.
Helios Nursery needed to increase its production of elite bare root rootstocks and two-year-old elite variety grafted trees to meet the increasing demand from its orchardist customers.
"We have chosen to produce all of our elite rootstocks in Ellepots," Todd Erickson from Helios said.
"In the Ellepots and PropTek trays we can propagate the rootstocks in the greenhouse in a much shorter period of time.
"The rootstock plants that we produce have many more roots. Producing a rootstock bare root in the field takes at least a year. In Ellepots and Ellepot trays we can accelerate the process significantly."
Helios Nursery is producing several varieties of apple, cherry and pear rootstocks.
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"We are growing in two different sizes of Ellepots, the 45mm by 60mm long and 35mm by 60mm (72 Ellepot Deep)," Mr Erickson said.
"Most of the rootstocks we are producing have a sizeable root system and that's why we like to use Ellepots that are a little longer than wide.
"We have found a uniform growing substrate that we are able to use for all of the rootstocks. We are using Ellepots for all of the rootstocks we produce."
Rootstock are then transplanted, into Jumbo size Ellepots of 70, 80, 100 or 120mm diameter for later grafting or budding.
The growing period for this stage has been reduced, by more than 30 per cent due to the air trays that air prune the growing root tips also reducing root wrap and J rooting.
Orchardists report more uniform establishment with reduced replanting.
Erickson said using Ellepots has enabled his company to propagate and ship rootstocks from April through November (Northern Hemisphere).
"For a grower who is doing the propagation outside, it would take a year to produce one crop," he said.
"Doing the propagation in Ellepots in a greenhouse, we are able to produce multiple crops per year," he said. "We are propagating from April 1 until December 1 (Northern Hemisphere)."
Another advantage of propagating the rootstocks in Ellepots is being able to grade and consolidate the cuttings much more quickly than propagating in conventional plastic containers.
"Propagating in Ellepots allows the rooted cuttings to be removed from the trays sooner because the paper is holding the soil ball together," Mr Erickson said.
"The cuttings can be consolidated and graded in half the time. In the Ellepots, the cuttings can be removed from the trays immediately after rooting begins.
"The cuttings in the Ellepots haven't necessarily produced more roots, but they can be processed much more quickly."
Being able to produce multiple rootstock crops per year helps Helios Nursery meet the changing demand of the market.
"It takes the same amount of time to produce a finished grafted tree, but it takes much less time to produce the elite rootstock in Ellepots," Mr Erickson said.
"We can react to the needs of the market much more quickly."
Helios Nursery originally purchased its Ellepots from a horticultural distributor.
After several years of successfully using Ellepots, company officials decided to purchase their own Ellepot machine.
Helios Nursery can now focus on producing healthy and superior rootstocks and grafted trees for its customers. It is using its new Ellepot machine and the correct type of Ellepot paper to meet its production requirements.
"We do multiple turns of elite rootstocks per year," Mr Erickson, Helios Nursery manager, said.
"Ellepots allow us to respond immediately to our customers' changing demands. Something not possible using conventional methods of propagation."
- Copy supplied by Ellepot.