The explanation is buried deep in the report that I linked but essentially what they show in the chart is how rootstock will affect a particular cultivar. In this case they were testing European prune plums.
Their aim was to help insure farmers against total crop failure due late freeze and other weather anomalies. For example if you plant half your commercial field with Improved French Prune on Fortuna roots and the other half with Improved French Prune on CTRL9 roots it will stagger the bloom date by a week.
This is a typical behavior for northern climates. Here in California I see a significant difference in bloom time between apricot varieties. For example, last year, bloom started Feb 14 on Gold Kist and Mar 11 on Afghanistan (25 days later).
This is probably as much variance as you can get (at least for stone fruit). Taking into account practical limitations (not all rootstocks are widely available, some are not suitable for your soil, some produce trees of undesirable size, etc.), you can probably get 3-5 days difference in bloom times at most.
My project last year was to propagate some red mulberries that were growing in my woods and bring them out into the open. I successfully grafted one scion to an alba rootstock and airlayered two branches that are now also planted out. The grafted red mulb on the alba rootstock has swelling buds while the airlayers are still sitting dormant as are the original tree. But the the other alba rootstocks are still dormant. Although they are all in close proximity to each other the locations are a bit different. Looking at my other mulbs the Shangri La is swelling but the IE does not seem to be waking yet.
That is interesting that your grafted Red Mulberry is budding, while while your airlayers and alba rootstock are not. Let me know when your IE wakes upâŚHere in North Florida, IE and Silk Hope wake up at least ten days after pure Red Mulberries.
I assume your IE is still sleeping.
Your Shangri La should have woken up much earlierâŚunless youâve had a long stretch of cool weather, dipping to freezing at night, until the last couple weeks (most mulberries need at least two weeks of temperatures that donât reach freezing before they even consider waking).
IE still asleep. Looks like the airlayered reds are swelling but no green yet. Our forecast is straight spring but you never know. If we do get some weather that Shangri La is toast. The Albaâs are greening. The buds are so small on them. Do they tend to dwarf when used as a rootstock? They were just sold as Russian alba. 39 is the lowest projected low for the next 15 days and that takes us into the last average frost date. I even have one jujube that is showing some signs of growth.
Very similar climate here in Gainesville. But 2017 saw 25 F mid March, and about this time last year all the forecast models were predicting temperatures above freezing. Go figure.
The Russian alba (tatarica) seems to be the preferred rootstock for reasons unknown to me, other than it is extremely cold hardy. It is a somewhat dwarfed mulberry, but I donât know whether that is imparted to the grafted plant (but thanks for reminding me, as I had plan to try to resolve that topic). I will let you know if I uncover any reliable info.
As a âmulberryâ aside . . . . Did I read somewhere on here, that if you want to deter birds from demolishing another crop - just plant a mulberry. ? Either it was here, or in my other fruit travels . . . that was a recommendation. Supposedly, they will prefer the mulberries and leave the plums, cherries, etc. alone. Any truth to this?
You read correctly. Most birds seem to prefer mulberries over blueberries (I donât know about the other berries)âŚOne person surmised that they would rather be in a tree other than a bush close to the unsafe ground. Bear in mind you must select a mulberry tree that has similar ripening time to your blueberries, and the ripening dates will vary from year to year, so you might want to consider an everbearing variety like Gerardi (slow growing though) or possibly Illinois Everbearing or (my favorite) Silk Hope (depending on when they normally start producing ripe fruit in your area). Also âIssaiâ or the common âDwarf Everbearingâ might work.
Iâm looking for this. Now wondering if a plum grafts to an apricot and then apricot back onto plum might work. Using the plum like an interstem basically but allow it to do some growing too for years that apricot doesnât produce because of late frost.
I was going to mention this after reading the OP. Morus Nigra leafs out seriously late here. One of the latest of any fruits I have. Definitely would be the best bet as rootstock to test this theory.
This really doesnât apply BUTâŚ. Last year I cut scions from a damaged but still viable Eureka persimmon and grafted them back to some of the rootstock suckers that had grown. This year this is what I have. Original Eureka branches have broken dormancy and are already to the flower bud stage. The grafted Eureka, cut from the same tree and grafted to the same rootstock, are just now greening. Itâs original scions grafted to the original rootstock. Soooo do they just do what they want to do at the time???
Another post on a different thread referring to atone fruit indicated that it was at least a 2 or 2 year âadjustmentâ period for fruiting on different rootstocks. Your new grafts there hypothetically could be going through that too???
Also some of what we call graft incompatibility hypothetically might be due to later sap flow from the root - scion tries to bud break and not enough sap push and dies out. Migitating options might be prune back first or second year to only a couple of buds on grafted scion?? Or?? Maybe bud grafts would have more luck in these cases? Wondering could that be a source of the late graft failure un some cases too? Iâm just asking - and too dumb/novice to know whatâs already been studied.
Iâm just going to watch it to see if it happens that way every year. I think itâs just odd since scion and rootstock are all the same for all the growth. Maybe because the new growth is grafted high up on the rootstock suckers. My D. virginiana for the most part have just now or havenât yet broken dormancy.
They were grafted last year and grew well several foot each so they would have apex buds. Right? Maybe they wouldnât have as much stored energy. We had a very mild winter and the Asian persimmons were all jumping out of the boxâŚ.and that was surprising.
