What are marcots / air layering
A marcot is a cutting that is grown directly on the branch of a  fruit tree that is already bearing fruit .
The roots form on the tree itself and when they are big enough , the cutting is taken off the tree and is potted up and becomes an exact replica of the tree it came from.
Most marcots will produce fruit within 1 year but some varieties can take around 2 years to fruit.
When you purchase a marcot tree from us at Heaven On Earth Fruit Trees you will find that in time our fruit trees will grow better than grafted fruit trees that you have purchased before from other nurseries.
They will grow faster and will be easier to maintain and will be better suited to your climate.
This has certainly been our experience from growing fruit trees on our farm for the past 12 years.
Most of the grafted fruit trees we have purchased have ended up being very disappointing trees in the long run
but the marcots we have taken from those same grafted trees have turned out to be superior fruit trees.
We have also heard from many of our customers that the marcotted fruit trees they have purchased from us are much better than grafted fruit trees they have purchased from other nurseries.

What is the difference between a marcot and a grafted tree?
The best thing about a Marcot is they are a lot easier to maintain than a grafted tree.

A grafted tree is made up of two parts (THE ROOT STOCK) which is the bottom part of the tree and the (SCION) which is the top part of the tree.The (SCION) is chosen from a tree that is already bearing fruit and is grafted on top of the (ROOT STOCK).The root stock is normally a tree that has been grown from seed but is from the same species but not the same variety.For example most citrus are grafted onto trifolate root stock
which is a thorny wild citrus bush with a hardy root system but it doesn't bear edible fruit.

This is why a grafted tree bears fruit quicker than a fruit tree grown from seed as the scion will flourish and will fruit sooner than a seedling, however it also means that the seedling part of the tree (THE ROOT STOCK) at the bottom of the graft will also keep growing and will shoot out it's own banches which will need to be pruned often so that the energy of the roots goes to the Scion which is the fruiting part of the tree instead of the rootstock which will not bear the fruit that is desired.

If the (ROOT STOCK) part of the grafted tree isn't monitored and pruned back properly it will steal energy from the (SCION) at the top of the graft and can also overtake the tree resulting in the (ROOT STOCK) seedling taking over and growing faster than the  (SCION).
As the (SCION) is the part of the tree that will bear fruit (NOT THE ROOT STOCK) you will then effectively be growing a seedling and you won't get the fruit that you purchased the tree for in the first place.

In contrast a Marcot is taken from a fruit tree that is already fruiting so it is an exact replica of that tree and will also bear fruit quicker than a seedling just like a grafted tree. Most fruit tree marcots will actually fruit quicker than grafted trees for instance a star apple or a carambola that is grafted could take 3 years to fruit , but from a marcot will fruit within 1 year .This has been the case for us when we have purchased grafted fruit trees from other nurseries,we even purchased a grafted carambola from a popular online nursery which still has not fruited after 5 years.

The difference between a marcot and a grafted tree is that a marcot does not need a (ROOT STOCK) or a (SCION) as it's roots are grown on the branch of a fruiting tree all by itself and is then taken off and grows as one part , not two parts.

This means that a marcot will never need to be pruned back , (unless you want to keep the tree short) but it will have no ROOT STOCK seedling at the bottom of the tree to compete with.
This makes the tree easier to maintain without constantly having to prune the bottom branches like you would have to with a grafted tree.

Sometimes the leaves of the ROOT STOCK on a grafted tree can look the same as the leaves as the SCION (for example stone fruit trees where the leaves of different varieties look extremely similar) so if the tree is left for a long time without maintaining it you may not even be able to tell the difference between what branches are from the ROOSTOCK or which branches are from the SCION any more, and you may prune off lower branches that may actually be the part of the tree that you are not meant to cut off.(THE SCION)

Some fruit tree crops are only grown from Marcots such as Lychees and Rambutans and some stone fruit and apples as well so it goes to show that Marcots can be very successful and will grow just as well , and in our opinion better than grafted trees .

Another reason Marcots can be better than grafted trees is that some ROOT STOCKS that are used for grafting are not compatible with all climates so if you live in a warmer climate and the ROOT STOCK is only suitable to cold climates or visa versa there is more of a chance that your fruit tree won't survive.

We have mostly marcotted trees growing on our fruit tree farm as well as a couple of grafted trees ,
but the marcots out perform the grafted trees easily, in fact most of the grafted trees we have purchased from other nurseries have died.We have plenty of examples of marcots growing a lot better than their grafted counter parts.