What about Malus floribunda as a rootstock?
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Donât see how winesaps could grow true from seed, they are a triploid.
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Iâve read that wolf river is also a variety that does well from seed. Probably due to many dominant genes. Could also be a factor in why itâs noted as being a good pollinator of other varieties.
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A great number of Canadians and folks in zone 4 or lower in the U.S. use Dolgo, Ranetka, and/or Baccata crabs for rootstocks. All are seedlings
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I have some seedlings planted out this year. They are from a variety of sources (wild and domestic open pollination) and I am mostly doing it as an experiment and for fun. My methods have been to plant out several dozen seeds, select the healthiest growers to plant out in my orchard rows and continue to cull as I see problems in the future with the hopes of winding up with some proven healthy trees. If the fruits turn out to be subpar (which is likely) I will top work them to other varieties. This method requires time and space, but the HUGE advantage to full size trees is your efforts pay dividends for multiple generations (I want my grandkids picking from these trees). I have a âfull sizeâ seedling and antonovka orchard that is being treated as a multi generational project, as well as a separate âdwarf orchardâ where I can test varieties/fruit/my breeding efforts more quickly.
Here is a row of selected seedlings (sorry not the greatest picture)
Planted in March indoors, selected and planted in ground in may. Since then they have grown anywhere from 1.5 to 3.5 ft tall. Note 3rd in from the left is much shorter than the rest.
All the other random seedlings got chucked into a nursery to fend for themselves in a competition for light and nutrients where only the strongest will be selected next year for further testing (this pic gives you an idea of the chaos/variability seedlings can exhibit)
I have noted in a previous post that some of my seedlings have done some unique things. For instance some grew to about a foot tall and then started pushing all lateral buds at once forming almost an apple âbushâ for no apparent reasonâŚ(although I do have my suspicions that it is an environmental response of some sort and not genetic).
They even show variability right from day oneâŚnotice the 3 cotyledons instead of the typical 2:
Although this is completely anecdotal I thought it may be of use for others playing around with seedlings. I plan to keep growing them every year (although they wonât be given much space until they prove their keep), they are a joy to grow and have around.
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Apple varieties that reproduce true to seed do so because many of their alleles are homozygous AND dominant over alleles of other apples. Antonovka does not need to pollinate itself to reproduce true to seed.
Knowing very little myself about apples particularly, I was speculating that the reasons for using clonal rootstocks were similar to some of the reasons that farmers often plant hybrid seed instead of open-pollinated strains: consistency/uniformity (which isnât to say necessarily any better on average, but large-scale farmers, especially want every plant to be very nearly the same height, mature at the same time, etc.); seed companies push hybrid seeds in part because itâs to their advantage to sell products that farmers are more likely to buy from them rather than growing for themselves â this is especially true with species like watermelons that donât really show any hybrid vigor, but I think itâs true even when there are real advantages to hybridization; hybrids are more compatible with highly specialized supply chains, because once the inbred parent lines have been selected they can be grown out with cheap labor and without any further special attention to differences between individual plants (i.e. none of the attentiveness like Everett describes with his seedlings is really necessary)⌠And, of course, a major reason I thought clonal apple rootstocks were developed was for dwarfing purposes.
So a lot of what Iâm saying is pure speculation as it relates to seedling apple rootstocks, but there are certainly reasons that large-scale commercial growers might want clonal rootstocks that wouldnât hardly apply to some other growers.
In the case of fruit trees, clonal rootstocks benefit everyone. Besides dwarfing and as previously stated clonal rootstocks also provide precocity (early bearing) disease resistance, drought tolerance among others.
As an example using mm106 can often produce a crop in 3-4 years. Using a Northern Spy rootstock would more than likely take 10-15 years to produce a crop.
Sure, but those most commonly sought after advantages of common clonal rootstocks would be forfeited just as much with Antonovka (or Northern Spy) seedlings as with seedlings from random apples. In other words, Antonovka seedlings wouldnât be any more precocious as rootstock than the average random apple seedling, would they?
No. The properties of Antonovka and Northern Spy seedlings (and others) are known. The properties of random seedlings are unknown. Antonovka in particular is extremely cold hardy, very adaptable to different soil types, very drought tolerant, and relatively disease free.
What I meant to say is that the main reasons people choose clonal rootstocks like the MM106 you gave as an example or other common clonal rootstocks are not because of cold hardiness, adaptability to different soil types, drought tolerance, disease resistance, or anything else that might be true of Antonovka. In fact, people often compromise on those traits for the sake of the leading reasons clonal rootstocks have been bred, namely size/dwarfing and precocity.
Your assumptions are not correct. People choose clonal rootstocks for all of the reasons you mentioned.
You donât really need to compromise much. There are many clonal rootstocks to choose from depending on your desired size, your soil, climate, disease in your area etc.
A rootstock that provides the desired dwarfing and precocity doesnât do you any good if it dies in 3 years due to crown rot.
Not having trialed selected (like Antonovka) seedling rootstocks side by side with random apple seedling rootstocks myself, and not knowing anyone personally that has done so (especially not anyone with a similar climate, soil typesâŚ), and not having seen reports of any controlled scientific studies where these sorts of side by side comparisons have been done, some things that I remain skeptical of are:
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That a group of Antonovka seedlings would be dramatically less variable in vigor/runtiness than a group of seedlings grown from another single random apple cultivar. (But even if this is true, it wouldnât seem very hard to cull undesirable runts at the beginning.)
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That Antonovka seedlings would be dramatically more adaptable to different soil types than seedlings grown from a random selection of apples.
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That Antonovka seedlings would be dramatically more drought tolerant than seedlings grown from a random selection of apples. (And even if that is true, would rootstocks grown from random apple seeds be any less drought tolerant than some of the common clonal rootstocks?)
4-8. That Antonovka seedlings are substantially more resistant to each of the specific diseases that have been mentioned in this thread which might affect the rootstock portion of a grafted tree. And even if there were studies showing this to be true for any one of these diseases in any given location, unless similar studies showed very similar results in a whole range of locations, I think it would still be appropriate to question the applicability of those studies to very different climates and soil types. And showing that one group is resistant to one disease certainly doesnât prove that the same group is going to be resistant to another disease.
Itâs reasonable to speculate that these are all reasons why growing rootstock from random apple seeds doesnât seem to be common practice, but reasonable speculation with intelligent references to specific diseases and issues is still just speculation, and there are other reasonable explanations, too, if weâre just speculating. Even if you have a PhD in pomology, if the claims youâre making are meant to be more than educated and reasonable speculation, then I think these claims demand a lot more specific evidence to stand on, especially if random participants in this forum are reasonably going to trust these claims. If thereâs real evidence, anecdotal or published scientific studies or whatever, share the details or links. If you just have a vague recollection of everything about Antonovka seedlings being better than everything else, I think youâre exaggerating the evidence.
Have fun with your experiments.
What would those âmanyâ clonal rootstocks be for someone in zone 3b or lower?
If thereâs any actual evidence, even just second-hand anecdotal, for any particular points of comparison, Iâm interested.
Options for zone 3b include these
Ottawa 3
Bud 490
P2 or P22
It is also common to use siberian crab as a rootstock (Malus baccata). You may have to use an interstem with this one due to poor compatibility, or use the frame tree method.
Ranetka Crab is also used.
In addition, Antonovka doesnât need to be grown from seed, it can also be clonally propagated.
Ottawa 3 may be an option for Canadian growers. Iâve yet to see a U.S. source. Bud 490 is not easily sourced. P2 or P22 is just a variation of anotonvoka I believe. If you are aware of some commercial operation clonally propagating antonovka, Iâd love to hear about it. I already stated that baccata and ranetka are used by northern growers. Not sure what your point there may be.
You are clearly sold on using only clonal rootstocks. Yay. I like the unknown
There is overwhelming second hand evidence that Antonovka reproduces somewhat true to seed and that most other apple varieties do not. There is little scientific study of this phenomenon since most nurseryman orchardists amateur and university breeders accept this as fact.