The purpose of our work is to determine the best substrate for a higher yield of standard cuttings in the forest-steppe zone of the Urals. The objects of research were varieties of vegetatively propagated clonal rootstocks of apple trees: selection of the Orenburg branch of the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution of the Federal Research Center of Gardening - Ural 7, Ural 3, Ural 5, Ural 11 and 54-118, 64-143 - selection of the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution of Higher Education Michurinsky GAU. Planting scheme 1.2 x 0.3 m. In the experiment used a combination of substrates: "soil" (K), "soil + sawdust", "soil + humus". According to the results of the tests carried out, the largest leaf area was found in the "soil + humus" variant in the 54-118 rootstock (2.50 m2), and the total assimilation surface of the leaves was the highest in Ural 5 (30.8 thousand m2 / ha). It was found that the length of the rooting zone showed the best result in the "soil + humus" variant and ranged from 9.4 (Ural-11 stock) to 14.9 cm (Ural 5 stock) and exceeded the "soil + sawdust" combination by 0.9 - 1.8 cm. The smallest indicator of the total length of roots was noted in the variant "soil" (K) in the stock Ural 11 (12.7 cm), in the variants "soil + sawdust" and "soil + humus" the highest indicator was in the stock Ural 5, the difference between the options was 6.7 cm. Thus, we can conclude that the best indicators were on all the studied stocks when using the substrate "soil + humus".