I did an experiment this spring and thought folks might be interested in the result.
It all started this spring when I set out to make a batch of interstems, under the influence of my friend Holly, using the both-grafts-at-once technique advocated by the guy with the Skillcult website. Folks on this site provided some great advice, back on this post:
I’ve since planted them out and most are doing nicely despite the rough newground I planted them in. In the process I ended up with a handful of ~10" M111 and B118 stems with no root. They looked sort of forlorn, so I dipped the ends in a jar of ancient rooting hormone I had lying around, and stuck them in a small bucket of damp sawdust in a cool basement for a few weeks. Then they started to show leaves so I moved them to a brighter mudroom, and eventually I planted them out in our vegetable garden, soaking them in well, and I kept them watered (it’s been a wet spring, but the soil is very well drained).
The photo above shows the result so far. The interesting thing is that while most of the stems were showing some kind of roots, since I planted them out all of the B118 stems (near row) seem to have died, while every one of the M111 stems (far row) is throwing up some healthy growth, and most look quite robust. It’s surprising to me that there is that dramatic a difference between these two rootstocks - is this consistent with what other folks know about M111?
I’ve been very impressed with M111. That is all I will use now for new apple trees that we plant. We have 5 dozen Honey Crisp on M111 and they are doing very well.
I’ve helped graft apples at a nearby orchard for years. They use MM111 exclusively, although it tends to fruit a year or two later than Bud118. I’ve seen root sticks (yeah, that’s what I meant) of MM111 with a single thread of root do just fine.
Seems to me it depends on other factors as well. I stuck some B118 cuttings a few years ago and most of them eventually took, last year did the same thing because I had a little extra space and almost none of them took. Go figure. I havent tried M111 cuttings.
In windy and summer-dry coastal Northern California, MM111 is the rootstock of choice for backyard growers who don’t irrigate or stake established trees. It roots really well.
The one B118 tree that I tried here (a Sweet Sixteen) just didn’t thrive for some reason, and I replaced it with the same variety on MM111. That one is doing just fine. That’s not much of a test, admittedly, but I don’t see much upside to repeating it.
In the foreground is a 5th leaf Goldrush on 111. Can you find it? To the left and behind 5th leaf Jonalicious on G16 or 11. To the right and behind my 12 yr old pear trees.
I haven’t seen much difference in vigor between M111, M26, M9, G11, G16, or G30. Variety makes a big difference. Some are slowed much more by lack of chilling than others. And of course Goldrush is naturally weak but does leaf out much earlier than some others.
Yes, I’ve noticed that out here. Some years I “burn” the leaves off with successive copper sprays in January to promote new leaf generation in the Spring.
The majority of these stems grew, and I’ve given away a few, but as I’ve been busy with other things they are taller than I am. I’m actually planning to use them to replicate/replace the rodent-chewed interstems from the project that started this experiment, as noted here: Waiting for the blizzard, thinking about apple interstems (ME coast, 5b).
The rootstocks are at least as big as my thumb, so I probably need to cleft graft the interstems into them. Then for varieties, @hollygates kindly sent me a box of interesting scions from his beautiful backyard wall.
I was pretty happy with the results of the interstem experiment until I lost half the trees to varmints several years in; in the future I might just plant on 111 or a slightly smaller rootstock and wait longer…
Good to know this has worked for others. Last year as I made my first interstem trees, I tried to root the M111 cut-offs. I applied rooting hormone and put them in coconut coir in a clear tote. Probably 75% or more of them developed roots, but… I didn’t do a good enough job extracting them from the coconut and potting them up. All died but one… Trying again this year, with hopefully improved knowledge and success rate.
Thank you for the update! The reason I asked was that I have done a bit of bench grafting with m111 this year (my first grafts) and I decided to put the cuttings in a coir/perlite/peat moss mix with rooting hormone just for fun prior to finding this thread. It seems like all are beginning to bud out.
Based on the input of @wdingus I will try to be patient with them before I pot them up! Wendell do you remember approximately how long you waited before you tried to make the move?
Not sure how long, I moved them out of the tote because they were pushing against the lid. Next time I’ll try to keep them in a high humidity environment during that second phase as well.
M111 tends to have a lot of root suckers. So when I remove my root suckers, I go beneath the soil line to get a small piece of root. I stick them in a bit of rooting hormone and throw them in small pots. That’s how I propagate my m111 rootstook. They almost always survive.
