Hello all you experienced fruit growers, I have an abundance of American plum seedlings that I would like to use as rootstocks. I am using them for plum varieties, but wonder if it would be acceptable to use them as a rootstock for peach and cherry. Is the long term compatibility viable?
Thank you
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I know some local growers who use prunus americana as rootstock for peaches for the cold hardiness of p americana, no reports of incompatibility. I will be trying this combo out when warmer temps arrive, I have a crop of suckers and seedlings to work with☺
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Looked into it for peaches in marginal north
If I remember correctly there were a few folks doing it with moderate succes. I believe there were some pretty significant overgrowth issues, but peaches are so short lived in z4 that it wasn’t seen as a real problem.
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I think it should work from what i have read. I have peach that i budded last summer to p americana. I’ll know for sure this spring as long as i get some takes. As Rob mentioned, peaches are iffy up here anyways so using a nice hardy rootstock under them that can be regrafted is a smart move (imo).
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It’s pretty unlikely to work for cherry. They require different rootstock than most other stone fruit. I’ve seen very little overlap.
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Not to divert the thread too much, but how about for apricots?
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I bought a bundle of native wild plum (25 root stocks) from our dept of forestry about 3 years ago and grafted many plums, peaches, apricots and pluots on these root stocks and they did fine. I like them because the trees stayed short for me without any pruning so far. I should be getting lots of fruits this Spring from those trees.
Tony
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Would only work for cherry if you used a interstem. One of the reasons I am interested in Nadia is that being a cherry/plum hybrid it might work nicely as a interstem. Z-Dwarf rootstock suckers for us here and its also a good candidate for interstem.
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I’ve tried Japanese plums on cherry/plum hybrids and they did not take. I tried Japanese plum on American plums, sand plums, Canadian bounty plums, Hansen bush cherries aka western sand cherries and they did take with great success. Japanese plums did not seem to take on goose plums. Cherries I only use cherry rootstock for. I have wild plums that are a blue plum used purely for rootstock that European plums may take on but Japanese plums would not. I’ve been told peaches take on many plums including western sand cherries. American plum seedlings are extremely easy to graft and will readily take many plums so I would suspect they would take things other than plums that are in the prunus family. I’ve read that the former St. Lawrence Nurseries put 100% of the plums they offered on American plum seedlings. I know for sure red haven peach will take on American plums based on work done by the University of California http://ucanr.edu/sites/fruitreport/Rootstocks/Search_Name/?uid=35&ds=538. This trial was at Umass. http://extension.umass.edu/fruitadvisor/sites/fruitadvisor/files/newsletters/fruit-notes/pdf/FruitNotes-vol75-no3-4_0.pdf. This article likely answers most of your questions http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/did2222.0002.321/--plum-tree?rgn=main;view=fulltext
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Thanks for all the great information everyone. I think I will try using them for peach rootstocks this summer. I had not considered pluots for some reason, but it makes sense they would work.
I have had good success bench grafting plums in early spring, peaches I bud in the summer. What is the best timing for pluots?
Thanks
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Same as for plums. When the understock starting to leaf out in the Spring then graft the pluots…
Tony
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I’m trying out pluots as stock too. The one thing i’ve noticed with pluot seedlings is they are faster growing then even the peaches, so i wonder if that is good or bad as root stock. Pluots are a lot hardier then i ever imagined. Even after last winter I had pluot grafts that flowered and set fruit …lows were near -20F at times. Peach as rootstock up here probably isn’t a good idea (climate), plus if you don’t watch it, borers will hit your tree hard.
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I grafted apricot on ornamental purple leaf plum, Prunus cerasifera last year . It took and grew normal.
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Very interesting to hear your experience on plout hardiness.
Which varieties were you seeing this with?
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Do you suspect it will actually bare fruit?
What? Nekked fruit?! 
I’d think they’d rot fast without their skins. 
(Couldn’t resist.)
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I’m pretty sure that was Emerald Drop. I think FK is said to be hardy too… i’m going to be plant a Flavor Supreme in the ground so we’ll see how that does the next few winters.
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Supposedly, Fedco puts their peaches on P. Americana seedlings.
I remember reading somewhere that plums and cherries are more genetically diverse than peaches. I wonder if P. Americana seedlings grown in the same location have noticeable variation in vigor, especially when comparing trees from different nurseries.
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An update on an old thread-
I tried 3 or 4 varieties of peaches and a nectarine on p americana last spring and had 90% successfully take with whip and tongue grafts preceding a stretch of warm 70ish weather.
It will be interesting to see how much dwarfing effect there is, seems precocious as I’m pretty sure there are flower bud set along the 3-4’ whips.
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I did an American here last year, fwiw my Lavinia put on like 2" of weak growth only.
Could be a weak graft, incompatibility, disease, hard to tell and I intend to try more this year, but that one did really, really poorly, sadly.
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