I can only speculate, but I suspect your explanation fails to account for a significant difference between standard and dwarfing trees, namely that poor resistance to disease or drought, poor adaptation to different soil types, etc. will be much less common in full standard trees, because poor resistance/adapaption, etc. to different stresses and conditions would tend to have a dwarfing effect. In other words, trees don’t grow as well and as big when they have problems. I’m guessing a large percentage of seedlings with poor resistance/adaptation would be dwarfing – ribs referred earlier to issues with runts, but what’s the difference between runting and dwarfing? – and those undesirable traits would be proportionately much less of an issue in a population of random seedlings, and even less yet of an issue if one did as Everett discussed doing and planted the seedlings and culled the ones with inferior growth over the course of two or three years before grafting.
So I’m saying I expect the sorts of problems that have been discussed as reasons for not using random apple seedlings (other than exceptional cold tolerance perhaps, which wouldn’t be a concern for most people anyway) aren’t actually so much of an issue, even though they would presumably be much more common if one were selecting like the Geneva program, for example, for dwarfing rootstocks. So in order to develop a dwarfing rootstock from random seedlings, one would have to pay special attention to all the undesirable causes of dwarfing, but if one weren’t looking specifically for a dwarfing rootstock then those issues wouldn’t so much be a concern.
And, in any case, all these comparisons of random apple seedlings and clonal dwarfing rootstocks isn’t directly relevant to my original question of the difference between random apple seedlings and Antonovka seedlings. It seems believable that Antonovka seedlings are more likely to carry genes for exceptional cold hardiness, but I’m highly skeptical of all the other claims that Antonovka seedlings are more disease resistant or drought tolerant or will be better adapted to my particular soil type than the average seedling grown from random apples when those claims apparently aren’t based on any actual evidence but only on the common assumption that Antonovka seedlings are superior in every imaginable respect. Maybe it’s true, but I doubt it, especially if no one taking part in this thread is aware of any sort of actual evidence to confirm it.
Hi there, thought I’d give my take on this. Around four years ago I grafted heritage varieties onto apple seedlings that I grew out from honeycrisp apples. The seedlings were a year old, I selected the most vigorous seedlings and disposed of the weaklings. I also grafted one variety to an M111 rootstock as I had one available. My reasoning for the seedlings was that this was how things must have been done in the past so should be fine, plus I couldn’t get any other rootstock at the time.
Four years on the M111 has produced it’s first fruit, but in terms of health and vigor, there has so far been no difference between this tree and the seedling rootstock, simply that it has been more precocious. I also grew some antonovka seedlings on out of curiosity, they have so far preformed identically to the honeycrisp seedlings.
Being only four years in, there is only so much information that can be garnered from my planting, but so far I have encountered no problems and I should add, I am on clay soil in an exposed location which becomes waterlogged for much of the winter, this is not the easiest site, but the seedlings are proving resilient and I’m happy with the results to date.
Commercial orchards rarely use full size rootstock, so breeding programs aren’t really breeding new full size rootstock. Their focus is on heavily dwarfing rootstock.
As amateurs our goals are different than large commercial orchards. I think it would be great if a bunch of amateurs would plant out random rootstocks and see what grows. Perhaps someone will find something great. It does seem like you might be able to get something well suited for a tough growing site by planting out a bunch of random seedlings in that area and whatever survives is good for that spot.
I think you’d want to start with a wide variety of apples as parents to get the most genetic mixing. If I had time to do such a project I’d cross some good eating apples, or at least take the seeds from a good eating apple so you know that at least one parent is good, and grow seedlings from that. See skillcult’s videos on youtube. Then plant those seedlings out and graft to all the branches except one, leaving one rootstock branch to fruit to see what it is. Maybe it will be really good! And if not, and the rootstock is working well, you can always graft over it. If the tree struggles then just cut it down.
Seems like a fun project if you have time and want to plant a whole bunch of trees! Will the results be better than a commercial rootstock or Antonovka? I have no idea!
Might be fun for someone interested in developing new rootstocks. Not fun for someone interesting in enjoying fruit in a reasonable amount of time on trees that are reasonable to manage.
I’m 45 years old. When I plant a new tree, I want to enjoy the fruit when I am 50, not wait until I’m 60.
I also don’t want to wait 10 years to realize that tree is highly susceptible to fireblight (which was the primary reason for the Geneva breeding program)
When I plant a tree I want
Long term disease resistance. No way to know this with a random seedling in fact it is likely the rootstock will not be disease resistant.
Size control. I will be too old for ladders by the time many of my trees bear. Most random seedlings will produce full size trees. Some will be runts and not produce at all.
Early bearing. I do not want to wait until I am old to enjoy fruit. Many new orchardists are older than I am.
There is a reason most orchardists, hobbyists and homesteaders have used either rootstocks that grow true to seed or clonal rootstocks and have been doing so for 2000 years. Random seedlings are for dabblers
If you want to be a dabbler than go ahead and dabble away, but as I have previously stated, using random seedlings as rootstocks will produce random results. Disease resistance is not a dominant trait in apples. Neither is size control or early bearing.
One thing you can do is watch Skillcults videos on apple breeding. He has probably planted a few thousand seedlings by now. When I watch the videos where he is taking care of these seedlings he mentions a very good percentage of seedlings with fireblight, runting, and other possible diseases. I would say he has a pretty good sample size.
You may want to read some of the history surrounding the Geneva breeding program.
Scroll all the way down. In the beginning the primary purpose was to breed disease resistant rootstocks.
Along the way, most of their rootstocks were dwarfing but not all. G890 is the size of MM106. There are at least 4 others that are MM111 size that are currently in trials.
You have enough questions that you should probably do some serious research instead of speculating and disagreeing with those that have done serious research.
Personally I have had to learn the hard way many times during this journey of amateur orcharding and permaculture. Many, many others have learned the hard way over the millenia when it comes to rootstocks. I plan to learn from their mistakes instead of making them myself. I have learned the hard way enough.
That’s completely irrelevant if the question is how random apple seedlings compare to other full standard options like Antonovka seedlings, and that is the question here in this thread. I know you’ve rejected full standard rootstocks altogether, but the question of this thread does interest others of us, so if you’re not interested in the question here, and if you don’t have any actual evidence to share (scientific or anecdotal or historical) with regards to the question that does interest others of us, then why do you keep asserting that the evidence shows all the problems of using seedlings from random apples for rootstock (particularly in comparison to the commonly recommended full standard alternatives) without actually providing any of that evidence? I don’t really see any value in your assertions if you can’t or don’t want to back them up with relevant evidence.
Why don’t you watch Skillcults apple breeding videos as I suggested. He has planted probably a few thousand seedlings in a somewhat scientific way. Look at his results. Many of the resulting seedlings are highly susceptible to fireblight. Many others seem quickly infected by unknown disease. Many seem to be runts not growing much at all. Many are vigorous and seem to grow well but it is a crap shoot.
Why don’t you do a quick google search?
Antonovka is known to grow somewhat true to seed. Almost all other apple varieties are known to grow anything but true to seed. The reason for this is because almost all apple varieties have mostly heterozygous genes. You can google that too.
Fireblight resistance is not a dominate trait.
You can read an abstract here but you need to pay for the full article.
You can read lots of scientific articles about this subject but what I am telling you is common knowledge among orchardists, nurseryman, breeders etc.
Cousinfloyd I thought this was a interesting topic. (But 40+ percent of the response came from one source, pouring cold water on your query for information
Yesterday, I ate an apple from a wild tree on my place. I have a number of wild crabs, but so far only 4 apples. The first wild apple that came into production produces nice quality fruit. Red on the sunny side over a yellow background, crisp, sweet/tart, relatively disease free and ripe in mid-September. The one I ate yesterday has a red blush on the sunny side over a green background. It wasn’t fully ripe yesterday, so I’m guessing it too will ripen in mid/late September. It was more sweet than tart, crispy, nice “appley” flavor. So far I have two wild (random, I had nothing to do with planting them) trees that have survived -40 extremes with numerous -20 to -30 temps each winter, both relatively disease free, and both worthy of eating out of hand. Did natural selection occur with these trees? I don’t know. I’m happy to have them though
If nobody planted them than natural selection produced those varieties. If you or someone before you planted them then selective breeding produced those varieties. If you continue to take care of them then you have a hybrid situation between natural selection and selective breeding.
Too random. Gave up. I buy whips from Cummins using G 890 (we have heavy clay soil) and other types from Virginia Vintage Apples. Originally, I bought some dwarfs and M111s from, gasp, Stark, and had lots of collar rot/crown rot the year we had the 87” of rain (2018). Depending upon the tree I get a 1/2 bushel from each dwarf tree of Cortland, Macintosh, HoneyCrisp, Ginger Gold, Red Rome, Grimes, Winesap and a bushel or more from Golden Delicious (the main pollinator). I figure wild development makes no sense when Cornel has spend millions developing rootstock to withstand Fire Blight, collar rot, scab, etc. That leaves me to fight San Jose Scale (oil works fine with some Lorsban (I have a license) Curculio, Mites, Moths, Bitter Pit (Honeycrisp and Baldwin on the larger apples) etc. Have to admit I still have no Yellow Newton Pippins or Albermarle Pippins, but they are M111s and the crows love them.
Sorry to get off topic, but how do you like the G890 and how long have you been using it?
I have 4 bench grafts on G890 that I will be planting this fall and considering using it going forward.
Thanks
Just a few years - have also used P 202. While I would not call the growth explosive, it is much better than anything else I have ever used. (Scion includes Honeycrisp, Goldrush, Liberty, Williams Pride, Bonkers, Galarina, and Pristine. Oh, I would call the 202 explosive. I have a Pixie Crunch I planted last year that is 11 feet tall (from 36”) with many scaffolding branches. Land is in the Shenandoah Valley and super rich, corn that is 100’ away is around 240/acre and when beans are planted around 60+. (I note we have almost no Boron in the dirt - that has to be added.). I am also able to irrigate since I have a monster 70 gallon well.
