As an addendum to my point in the previous post about sugars in your apples, if you successfully grow (and like) Orleans Reinette and don’t find it overly sweet, you should be fine with the sugar levels of any of the russets mentioned above. I didn’t mention OR in my overlong post on russets because you already grow it, but it was the first russet I successfully grew (and still grow) here. It’s not as easy to for me to grow as most mentioned in my initial post, as it’s seriously biennial, and cracks, corks, rots, and drops in others, but when it’s on, as it is appears to be this year, it’s a top five apple in my orchard. It’s also super sweet along with the robust flavor profile. So, to repeat myself, if OR isn’t too sweet for you as grown in your orchard, the others I’ve mentioned are unlikely to be too.
Ok question? What is it about m111- takes too long? Do rootstocks have different properties that affect the growth of the fruit being grown. I am sooo new to all of this.
Loving all the info on this forum.
Thanks
Trees don’t like to bear until they approach their full size. M111 is the largest size tree commonly grown. Long time to reach full size = long time to bear. I have a Northern Spy on M111 in the grown for 12 years that has only produced a handful of fruit so far.
B-118 is larger than M-111 and bears a little quicker.
I guess you could ask the question as to why some teenage girls still look like skinny boys and others have developed the attributes of a mature woman as 9 to 12 year olds?
But, so far as I can ascertain there is no 'dwarfing" apple rootstock as slow to bloom and produce than M-111.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing if you’re younger, or if you’re planting and thinking of fruits for your grandkids…as M-111 has a lot of tried-and-true attributes over several scores of years.
Seedling or Antonovka roots generally live longer…from 35 to over 100 years. M-111 may live 30 to 60. My mom has a 46 year old Red Delicious on M-106 that is about to bite the dust. (M-106 is a faster fruiting option to M111, but your soil has to drain or root rots will make short life of your M-106).
Facts are facts. M-111 is slow compared to other size-controlling rootstocks. But, if you can be patient, it’s a fine one, making a tree at least 3/4 the size of a seedling tree, typically. The Geneva and other dwarfing roots are for high-density planting, and replantings in old orchard sites.
(The ‘jury is still out’ so far as I am concerned concerning their desirability for the average home
that has a good-sized yard or property.)
Personally I will never grow another apple on m111. Too much pruning for me and I don’t do ladders.
I have not really seen any evidence that trees on mm111 do not live as long as other rootstocks.
In fact it would be difficult currently to get reallly good data on this since mm111 was not introduced until 1952 and probably wasn’t widely planted until at least 10 years after that. Thats only about 60 years ago.
In addition, a great many commercial orchards cut them down over the years to make way for more dwarfing rootstocks as high density orchards evolved.
If anything it’s likely that mm111 lives longer than previous varieties since it was bred for resistance to fireblight, collar rot and apple aphids.
I would like to see actual data on this. I will ask the owners at Alber orchard down the road from me. That orchard is has been around since pre civil war times. They have never adopted a high density system. I know they have a good portion of trees planted on mm111. I will ask them when they were planted.
How many years a tree is capable of living, and the average in actual practice, are different subjects.
So, susceptibility to disease, drought, soggy soils…should be part of the consideration before buying apple trees. But has little relationship to precosity or how many years it is capable of producing.
I’m out…this is getting off the topic.
MM111 is the recommended rootstock in my location. Its hot, dry, and soils are typically clay dominated, which plays to MM111’s strengths. I have three trees out of around 70 on it. It’s easily the most vigorous of the six or seven different rootstocks I’ve trialed, which includes B118 (don’t like that one much, mostly due to leaning in early years (12 years in my oldest B118 trees and I’m still trying to drag some of these trees to vertical!).
If you aim for a pedestrian orchard, which I do, MM111 is a poor choice, which should be no surprise. Trees here tend to grow slowly, but MM111 is the exception. Those three trees take far more effort to reign in than any other stock. And, yes, they were easily the slowest to produce fruit.
There is a thread regarding rootstocks somewhere on the forum that has garnered a decent amount of recent traffic. That is probably a better place for this discussion, so I’ll refrain from further commentary.
A correction to my russet post, above, and hopefully the last one. I listed Rosemary Russet as my most attractive russet apple, but after checking some pictures online, I’m certain I have misidentified it. I have it on a tree with four other russets, one the foundation variety and the other four grafted as the base scaffolds a couple years later. Two of the four produced fruit this year, so confirming all four of them will have to wait at least another year, but either the RR sent to me was not accurate, or I mixed up the placement of my grafts on my tree map. If it’s the latter, this is likely Pine Golden Pippin, since it’s too large to be Pitmaston’s Pineapple, and Lucombe’s Pine is also fruiting and looks correct.
So the Orleans Reinette has all these issues?
In my orchard, yes. I can’t think of another apple I’ve grown that is close to as Jekyll and Hyde as OR.
I picked my Orleans Reinette a couple days ago because they were starting to disappear. One of the stolen remains showed mature seeds so I grabbed the last two. First year fruiting for this tree on G.222, it only received a couple sprays. Haven’t tried one yet, they’re small and pretty flat.
I did not know it was possibly such a mess to grow. Hit or miss sounds like to me.
I’m not sure OR is like that in other growing environments, aside for the tendency to be biennial, which I assume would be the case anywhere you grow it. Perhaps other growers will chime in with their experiences.
Twisted my brain with Herefordshire. I got all confused looking for Hereford. I got a Holstein this year from Fedco. I have a Holstein Hereford cross also, but with legs and hooves.
My grandmother’s maiden name was Holstein. My grandfather raised Guernsey cattle. My grandmother died before I was born, but I was told she did not think cow jokes were funny.
We grow Holstein apples partly in her honor. They look to be almost ready for picking.
Mike: I have a young tree that started life as a loose scion. The twig had red bark, while the other two scions were for gold or green fruit, so I have hoped it was Orléans Reinette, which can be quite rosy in proper conditions. It may take a couple more years to bear fruit & confirm or deny its ID. If it turns out to be OR, I will report.
Keep us updated. Thank you.
How are the Holstein apples? I had looked at putting one in my orchard. I have to remove a few non productive apple trees next spring and I am looking at other productive apples to replace them with.