Adara (Puente) Plum - Fruit tree, rootstock & interstem

[danchappell]

Adara (often called “Puente” in California), is a versatile plum (prunus cerasifera) rootstock and interstem which also produces tasty fruit of its own.

Beginning in the 1980’s, it was initially selected at an agricultural research center in Spain for use as a sweet cherry rootstock. It was selected for its ease of propagation, tolerance to flooded conditions, and good performance even when grown in heavy clay and calcareous soil with alkaline pH 8 to 9. All other commercially available sweet cherry rootstocks do very poorly in these conditions.

In addition to its use in Spain, in recent years it has also been undergoing extensive tests at Wolfskill research station in California as an alternative rootstock for the commercial prune industry.

Adara is graft compatible with many prunus species including European plums, Asian plums, sweet cherries, peaches, nectarines, pluots, apriums, apricots, almonds, and nanking cherries. However, compatibility depends on the specific cultivar. This compatibility makes it an excellent interstem for a multigrafted “fruit salad” tree or for changing over a tree to a different species. For example, a plum orchard could be changed to a sweet cherry orchard by top working the plum trees with Adara interstems. I have read a report of one person who successfully chip budded sweet cherries to Adara scions while simultaneously grafting the dormant Adara scions to plum rootstock. This made the change from plums to cherries very fast. One gentleman that I recently visited has a plum tree with over 130 cultivars and 21 different prunus species grafted together on one tree due in large part to Adara interstems.

The patent for this cultivar has expired and there is no commercial source available to the general public in the USA. However, some scions have appeared intermittently at the annual CRFG scion exchanges under the name “Puente”. I was fortunate enough to obtain some of this material recently.

I am curious to know if any of our current forum members are experimenting with this cultivar and what their experience has been. Also, I hope to be able to offer some Adara scions next year if there is any interest. If you are interested in this cultivar, what would you use it for?

Links:
Research report from Spain. Includes some graft compatibility charts.
Prune Research Report pages 52, 53, 54

[nicollas]

I got scionwood this winter that i’ll graft this spring. I have a lot of wild prunus spinosa growing on my land so i plan to use Adara as an interstem to graft cherries, plums or peaches on this free rootstocks

[brittanyw]

This is very interesting, especially the high pH tolerance. Anything noteworthy about the size of tree it produces?

[Vohd]

@danchappell

Also, I hope to be able to offer some Adara scions next year if there is any interest. If you are interested in this cultivar, what would you use it for?

I have been looking for a source and would be interested in scion if/when you have them. I’m interested in ultimately using it as a cherry rootstock.

[danchappell]

@nicollas

I have a lot of wild prunus spinosa growing on my land so i plan to use Adara as an interstem to graft cherries, plums or peaches

Hi Nicollas,

I am doing similar grafting projects on my land in California. I have heavy clay soil with lots of healthy wild plums. Adara should do well here.

Have you had experience using Adara in the past? Is it commonly used in France?

[danchappell]

@brittanyw

This is very interesting, especially the high pH tolerance. Anything noteworthy about the size of tree it produces?

I agree. The high pH tolerance could could be a real blessing for people in certain parts of the country who may otherwise struggle to grow sweet cherries.

@brittanyw

Anything noteworthy about the size of tree it produces?

The Wolfskill prune rootstock test report lists it as “Vigorous” with prune tree trunk diameters larger than average compared to the other rootstocks tested.

[nicollas]

I have no experience with adara. It is virtually unknown in France, not accessible to amateurs. I got my scionwood from Spain, but i’m not sure it is widespread among amateurs either there.

[brittanyw]

Something I just thought of. A while back there was a discussion of cherry rootstocks and their ability to handle hot soils. Z-Dwarf was put forward as a possibility for people in hot summer climates to help their sweet cherry trees handle the heat. I wonder if Adara, being P. cerasifera, would be useful on this front as well.

According to the research report, Montmorency is incompatible, and I don’t recognize the sour cherry cultivars said to be compatible (Ferracida, Negra de Serra, Reina Hortensia, Temprana de Sot). This would be an interesting project for anyone with a wide variety of sour cherry cultivars to test for us. (Hint, hint!)

Personally, I’d like to see if I can get something like Royal Rainier to take (just came off patent, looks like) because it would be nice to have a blond lower-but-not-little-chill cherry to complement my Lapins. RR is incompatible with Z-Dwarf.

Which is to say, I would be interested in cuttings to root (?) whenever you have some extra.

[charlesmcc]

Dan,
On the Rootstock, did you pick it up at the Sac CRFG scion exchange about a month ago? I was doing the demo using this rootstock for cleft and chip budding. I believe Ray for the Sac group is growing out more. Wish I had seen this forum before I did the grafting demo, I used Montmorency scion wood !
Charles

[danchappell]

@charlesmcc @JoeReal Hi Charles and welcome to the forum. I missed Adara at the CRFG exchange because until recently I was unaware that it was called Puente here in CA. Joe Real was kind enough to share some of his scions with me.

I have not visited the Sacramento exchange yet. Perhaps I’ll make a run up there next year. In the past I have gone to San Jose, Berkeley, and Santa Rosa.

@brittanyw @Vohd I’m trying to root some scions and I also have a few grafts in place now. If I am lucky I will have a bit of extra scion wood to share next spring. Otherwise I’ll be looking for more at the CRFG exchanges.

@brittanyw I have been unable to find Adara compatibility charts related to common North American stone fruit cultivars. Much of the documented research that I have seen was done primarily with European selections. Joe Real has used Adara interstems quite a bit on his 150-n-1 fruit salad tree so he may have a bit of compatibility data coming in as the scions mature. Maybe Joe would like to chime in here with what is working well with Adara.

[danchappell]

One of my experiments this year involves a root sucker taken from an old myrobalan plum found growing behind my home. I dug out the root sucker last year and grew it in a pot over the summer.

In mid February I performed a simultaneous double graft on the plum whip consisting of an Adara interstem with Lapins sweet cherry on the top. The results appear promising. The Lapins is leafing out quite well at this time.

[danchappell]

Here is a picture 11 days later of the double graft plant shown in the previous photo. The Lapins cherry appears to be quite vigorous. The little plum branch from the bottom of the rootstock has also begun growing but the cherry is faster.

[danchappell]

This Adara scion has been bark grafted to an almond understock as a compatibility experiment.

[bleedingdirt]

Goodbye plum, hello cherry

[itheweatherman]

I wonder if it’s the same rootstock, Prunica, that Raintree Nursery lists for their new fruit cocktail tree?

[danchappell]

My guess is that Prunica was a typo for the word Prunus. Most likely Prunus roots with Z-Stem interstem from Zaiger Genetics.

[danchappell]

Updated picture of Adara on almond experiment.

[JoeReal]

The fruits of Adara aren’t bad. Similar in size and shape to Myrobalans. The seed is tiny.

[BG1977]

Would Adara work ON peach as the rootstock? Say I want to graft sweet cherry to peach and use Adara as an interstem.

[danchappell]

I have a lousy peach that would be a good candidate for topworking also. I’d speculate that your odds are fairly good if you avoid the few cultivars that are known to be incompatible. As a general rule per the historical literature, plums are graft compatible to peach rootstock.
Two Lapins cherries that I grafted to Adara interstems this year are growing quite well. I’m having good success growing out Adara so I plan to add many more cherry cultivars next year.